An astronaut back from the moon at loose ends, I found myself on Mount Ararat looking for Noah's big boat. My fellow seekers, they never tired of asking me about the view. I'd say the eye of the moon can see outer space is a great black flood and this earth is the true ark.

Up there in that lunar vacuum, there's no wind that's going to cover my tracks. Somewhere a golf ball waits for me, wondering when I'm going to come on back. Well, I'm never coming back.

Stateside again, thought I'd take up oil painting. I enrolled in some night classes at a suburban community college. Like me, my teacher lived downtown, gave me a lift most every time. "All cities grow to the west," she'd say, chasing the sunset in her Volkswagen, driving toward the end of this world.

We'd lie up on her roof at night. She'd ask me what it's like up there. She'd be dreaming of making love in lunar maria. Oh honey, we're going nowhere.

The world's run out of style, but I've brought back some brand new content. I alone can paint you landscapes from beyond that heavenly firmament. So I'd frustrate her every lazy lovesick day asking her to teach me how to mix every shade of grey.

Beaux-arts trained, she left me alone with the techniques of the old masters. The ones the poet says were never wrong about suffering. But what did they know about astronauts?

If all history, we've been wanting to fly, and wanting to walk on that moon, isn't it a bit of tragicomedy we got tired of it so soon? You got tired of me so soon. I got tired of you so soon.

An astronaut back from the moon and at loose ends...