We stare at images of my breast
faceless to each other
“Here,” the doctor says. “And here.”
He traces invisible circles
claiming territory
on the spiderwebbed surface of the moon
This is where he will take
core samples
and mine for my future
The shadow of a snake appears
on the temple of sacrifices
Somewhere a hunter stumbles
upon a lone rabbit’s foot left
clamped in metal jaws
My wandering soul dawned at young age amid messy piles of National Geographics and pink-and-yellow atlas pages. I’d spin globes to see what the world turned up. I daydreamed. I was an Indiana Jones-girl, adventure girl, a space girl. I was Luke Skywalker’s sister before I knew he already had one. I rescued galaxies and vanquished enemies. I started writing my stories down.
When I got older I traveled, less than I’d planned but as much as possible, seizing opportunities whenever I could and creating others. I went as far as Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Egypt. I collected photos of myself in iconic places — under the Eiffel Tower, in a London phone booth, on a camel in front of the Great Pyramids. Regular life got in the way too much, though, and suddenly it was more than a dozen years since I’d had a new stamp in my passport.
And then I was diagnosed with cancer.
That’s when I went to the moon.
The Surface of the Moon 