Every month they’ve a gathering on the moon,
when they light a million candles on our side
of it that it looks plump and round —
like the one that my cousin used to draw when
she was little as a lamb;
she would draw a few dark spots which, she
said, were mountains that they couldn’t climb
to put the candles upon — Mauna Kea,
Mount Everest and names I don’t recall — she’d
say that the mountains had several alien
trees, they used to do their chores themselves,
but she never said anymore;
she would tell me sometimes though, when
no one was listening, that it was tough to see
farther than the trees that swung their heads
while we imagined her stargazing.
She doesn’t draw anymore but tells me when they
gather every month, she says that even they have
divisions — that not all of them light the
same candles — like us, but never more,
and I believe her.
Jayant Kashyap, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has had his poetry in Barren and StepAway magazines, among others; one of his poems was featured in the Healing Words awards ceremony (Sept 2017), and another won the third-place in Young Poets Network’s Bletchley Park challenge (Dec 2018). His collaborative poems with Lisa Stice now appear in zines, and he is now a food blogger for Shahi Dastarkhan’s Foodie’s Desk. His debut chapbook, Survival, is to come from NY-based Clare Songbirds Publishing House. He is also the co-founder and editor of Bold + Italic.
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