The Flight of the Moon

I was singing on the toilet

when the moon

came rolling in

bare naked

on a bicycle

racing through a forest of metaphor

the moon came to meet me.

Along the road outside

a beautiful woman walks by, brushing her teeth.

On a park bench

a man in a maternity dress is drinking apple juice.

At the end of the century health is always in full phase.

A hole in the sky drops open.

Distress like the moon, a gloom like the moon are gone

and the likes

fly brightly round and round that hole.

The deep folds of the abyss smooth.

Across the now-blank suffering face

poets start to skate.

The moon... mine... another.

Yoko Tawada

Note: I encountered this poem at a poetry event in the East Village. Here’s the original version in Japanese: