MOON COLD SHOULDER

BY JAI

The NEAR and FAR cards were printed by Cumbersome Multiples Press on a 1928 Chandler & Price letterpress using antique wooden type. PonyXpress writers wrote a response to the word on the cover. The cards were passed to the next writers and they used the prompt to write on the back.

There are different forms of freezing,
The side of a hill, a mountain really
At mid-day surrounded by pine and ponderosa
February, in the Rockies at base camp with friends.

There are different forms of freezing,
In the cooler at the back of the restraint
Doing coke lines and whippets before a shift
Hooters premier managers training in June.

There are different forms of freezing,
slogging through the deluge gutters flooded
Rain coming down in sheets so wet you don’t care anymore
The car miles away on the tow hook in April of ’92.

There are different forms of freezing,
vacuous iridescent panoramas with no air turbulence
Seemingly infinite space between the two planets.
Their gravity entwined in November, but not quite working.

That’s what kind she was to me,
her moon cold shoulder turned away from my caress,
having murdered her consideration with my heavy rolling stone.
She became colder to me that last year than the former three. | JM