I’ve been to nine planets in twelve years, and it’s starting to show.  Long gone are the days of summer-acting, rain-walking, spring-listening, and June-talking.  The tiny drops of Jupiter in my hair and on my skin have lost their sheen.  Constellation stories are old, memorized.  The flashing waves of the sun, my old playground, hurt these tired eyes.

I remember when Venus was a show-stopper, when Saturn’s rings were my cosmic carousel.  In my moods, I hid in Neptune’s dark spot.  On cool nights, I’d put the top down and cruise the Milky Way, that galactic highway.

But tonight, I am resting in a crook of the moon, and from here, I can see evening lights stretching across the northern hemisphere.  I almost miss that particular gravity of home, can almost picture the lilacs that grew on the farm, a medley of purples for those two weeks that passed like a moment. 

May…  Minnesota…

The breeze would trip from spring into summer as it rushed across the newly-plowed fields and all the lakes and through the flames of the bonfire that lit the surrounding faces with an intense orange glow.

It’s so cold in space.