Matthew Caretti

The Moon Has a Tail, and Earth Wears It Like a Scarf

gate ajar the milky way enters softly

Each full moon raises the question of the dark side. Of billionaires’ plans for a colony. Of an unknown crater and a rocket filled with robot builders. When will they begin? And why?

rings around the moon my silent migraine

Then the new moon. The meteor strikes and irradiated matter. A sodium spot drawn toward the Earth. Bending round it. I wonder, Can I see it? Would that make it real?

binary black holes wasting time

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Note: The title and haibun were inspired, in part, by this story at Live Science.

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About the Author

Matthew Caretti began publishing his poems in 2009, though his fascination with Eastern short-form genres began much earlier. In 2017, he garnered the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award for Harvesting Stones, and in 2022 published his first collection in print—Africa, Buddha—with Red Moon Press. He lives and teaches high school English in Pago Pago, American Samoa.