You really had to be there to get it— how I was sitting
in the yard of Nursery Blue on foxtails by the sandbox
next to my nursing infant, probably sleeping, one
Friday afternoon in the spring.

All helpers and they were sleepy drunk on milk—relaxed on plum blossoms. There was something about the way my bare leg curved as I sat down on the patchwork lawn—how it extended

Out from my faded denim skirt, then folded up like
a bridge chair— my sandaled feet tucked under
denim. Andy— probably four— sat down—
playing on my leg for a very long time.

In late afternoon light, I was drooping largely
unconscious. Andy— so near to me, gentle,
light in his white shirt— black pants worn
in honor of someone in Star Trek.

His fingers started walking. He had lots of action figures.
It was then my leg became the lunar landscape. His voice low— sound effects barely audible. I dared not turn
my face too fast around— fearing

To interrupt his sensitivity to colors of the moon.
How I shivered as sensation surfaced at the landing
— my network of nerves, blood, muscle yielded
to a conquest that was somehow an honor.

Spacemen in their helmets explored—roamed
every inch of sallow skin, mined each crevice,
curve, bruise, splotch until they found the vein

Where the moon’s dark spot emerged within.