Out of the subway at night and there hanging low in the sky over Fulton Street is the full moon. I stop to let it shine on my face, I want to feel it hit me, not the street lights, the stop lights, the shop lights, the headlights of this urban maze. I want the moon to light me up, its glow, its promise, I want that to enter me.

When this moon was waxing I stood on another city street corner and said my goodbyes to a friend going on a long sailing trip. We looked at the gorgeous moon along with the full bore honk and hustle of Flatbush Avenue and I thought of how the next time he looked, he would look at the exact same moon, but from Corfu, a place that sounds like wildness and whistling wind. I wish for him that he falls in love, with a place, a boat, a girl, and finds a way to live free of the grid and grit that defines us here.

Once a man edged into my life, as thin and golden as the slice of moon visible at the very edge of your night-time window. Like the moon he waxed glorious, and then he waned, and I could see him going, predict it, wish it would not happen, be powerless to stop the dwindling. Now, like the moon, he feels near but untouchable, both visible and remote.