ROCKET MAN
I know the moon is up there, far away. It is like a big yellow ball; how big it is, how perfect, how alone in a captive red sky. But I do not want the rocket man to take me up, invite me to sit in a tall, tall rocket, as tall as ten houses. I do not want to hear him say, “Come on in. Come into this little room.” I do not want to buckle myself up, to feel the push. Push. Push! I do not want to hear the rocket go boom. I do not want to know where I am. I do not want to look out. I do not want my rocket racing high away. I do not want my sky to be black. I do not want to ask, “What is that funny little blue thing down there, so far away?” I do not want to unhook my belt. I do not want to say, “OH!” as I float away. I do not want the rocket man to tell me quietly, “Up you go.”
I want the pull of the Earth to hold me down. I want to turn and turn and turn. Turning is what keeps things down. Down is more like home. At home you can eat and sleep. At home you can watch television, a show about the moon and the black sky and the rockets turning around the Earth. At home there is no one to ask, “How long will you be there? How long till you reach the moon?” At home there is no one to ask: “Soon?” I do not want to lie. I do not want to say, “As soon as the moon ship comes for me.” I do not want my moon ship to get away fast. I do not want the rockets of my moon ship to give me a big push. I do not want to be where there is nothing, not one thing to hold back my ship.
I do not want the BIG rockets to fire, to turn my moon ship around so it can land on its legs. I do not want the rocket man to quietly say, “Down you go.” There is no air out there. There is no way to breathe in the hot, hot days of the moon. There are no trees, no water at all. There is just deep, gray dust. Dust, dust, dust.
I do not want to put on a shiny silver space suit. I do not want to hear what the others on Earth have to say. There is nothing I want to tell them about the moon. I do not want to ride around in a funny looking moon car. I do not want to go for a ride in the high hills. There are many dish hills all over the moon. A funny looking moon car does not turn away from a dish hole. I do not want to go down into the hole. Down, down, down. Then up, up, up. I do not want to get out of my moon car. I do not want to climb to the top of the high moon hills. At home the hills are not quite so high. I do not want to hear the rocket man quietly say, “See? Up you go.”
I do not want the rocket man to build me a moon house, on top of a moon hill. I do not want to look out at the black sky. I do not want the rocket man to ask, “Do you see that big dot up there?” I do not want to know about Mars. Mars is a long, long way from the moon. How big it is, how perfect, like a big red ball, spinning and turning, alone in a black sky.