First Girl on the Moon By Marc Alan Di Martino

First Girl on the Moon

Her bedroom is a stellar nursery.
Lights out, glows marshmallow. Orion’s belt
studs the headboard as Saturn’s placid rings
constrict the hours till dawn. In night shade now,
even the lambs and lions on her pillow
sleep tight, each fuzzy muzzle cozied up
as prophecy foretold. Seven years old
and already a skeptic in her bones
our bookworm floats cloud-light across the skies
of her imagination—fine-grained, feathered.
She can go anywhere in this trim vessel,
the foam of memory her compass guide
to Nightmare, Fairy Tale and the Blank Page.
I close the door and bid her bon voyage.

Marc Alan Di Martino is a Pushcart-nominated poet, translator and author of the collection Unburial (Kelsay, 2019). His work appears in Baltimore Review, Rattle, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox, Valparaiso Poetry Review and many other journals and anthologies. His second collection, Still Life with City, is forthcoming from Pski’s Porch. He lives in Italy.