One night, there is nothing interesting on television and I have read every book in the house.
Bored, I decide to replace the moon with my heart. It takes a bit of work to scrape the moon from its perch, to hoist my heart in its place, but once it’s there in the sky, throbbing, it’s quite stunning. I am pleased with myself, even if people only vaguely seem to notice the substitution. Over Manhattan, the sky becomes intriguingly burgundy instead of brown. Scientists begin their work mapping the Sea of Ventricula. A man bounces on my heart’s surface, yelling Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky! Two people in a small town lock eyes and lean close and get their first kiss from each other under my heart. An old Japanese woman is a little concerned that her rabbit in the moon is gone, but eventually she shrugs it off—even bunnies sleep, and don’t those things sticking up from the top sort of look like ears? A lover in Los Angeles calls an ex-lover in Detroit: You know, once in a red moon, I wonder if we couldn’t have worked it out. Is it too late? The tides pulse in and roar back in a bloodthirsty surge. Dogs lick their lips at my heart’s juicy meat so far out of their grasp. A bunch of drunk high school students in a cornfield hold their cheap beer cans up and howl at my heart. Coaches advise, Shoot the moon, kid! Ya gotta have heart! A stepfather points at my heart and tells his daughter about all the people in the moon. There are more than you’d think there now. When I was your age, there was only one man in the moon. He shrugs. Times change. Cardiac patients take a drastic upturn. A man stands on the rail of the Golden Gate Bridge, staring at my heart, wondering Do I do it? Should I really do it? He looks at the bridge phone with the direct hotline connection. He looks at my heart. He looks at the emergency phone. He looks down at the black water. He looks at my heart. He takes a deep breath and he lets it out. Slow.

San Francisco-based Performance Poet Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the editor of Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories and Fictions and Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, as well as the author of the poetry books Kissing Dead Girls, Final Girl, Why Things BurnPelt, as well as the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious with artist Diane DiMassa.