Twenty years apart

Twenty years apart
In a different city, a different life
I remember the boy who looked up
At an immense sky wearing nothing but the moon:

His eyes and his heart
Open like camera shutters,
Were learning to moan to the pleasure of that unfathomable pain
As they hungrily swallowed the moonlight that pieced him
In a million places with such speed and apparent intent.

It made him forget in that instant
The unnerving restlessness that wore him like he were a mere accessory,
The swinging at every turn.

Twenty years apart
I look up into a different sky
Moonless, autumn, but no less immense
My eyes no less unsettled than the stars that would have been there
Desperately opening into a heart
Still freshly pierced
Still no less unaccustomed to waking up
Wearing this body like a mistaken tattoo
That fades only ever so slightly
And then all at once.