Astronauts Lifting the Skin of the Moon – Réka Nyitrai
October 3, 2022
The woman wearing a mask of roses is carrying a pork chop.
The dogs the clouds walk are howling ladybirds.
That’s all folks for the pigeons to peck.
They are all objects of adoration – says a visitor.
While the clouds are moving like future automobiles
bold and reckless, the pork chop stinks and feels ashamed.
The woman wearing a veil of roses
gives up her son for adoption.
Wait, says a ladybird, wait says a cloud,
but the pictures are done and the woman has gone.
What lingers is the pork chop’s stench.
As soon as housewives begin baking moon-cakes
they start to behave like movie stars.
They stop doing the dishes and do not mend
their husband’s socks. They spend more and more time
in front of the mirror, dreaming of remodeled bodies.
They do not care if supper burns.
They grow their nails long and paint them red.
At solstice you can see them digging holes in the backyard,
hiding the money, they have saved for their Princess Adventures.
Long ago, there lived an angel
who married a cloud.
I am curious – if the task of a lover is to make love
what might be a husband’s job?
I would say, it might be anything
from fanning to the kissing of a wife’s neck.
Records say that not one, but two neighbors
saw the angel fanning his wife’s neck.
He fanned
until his wings grew tired
and fell off.
Where the angel’s wings landed,
two volcanic cones sprang up.
They have been named thus:
Lesser and Greater Ararat.