MAGIC MOON VAN GOGH

In the desert, flat on my back, the night sky is a canopy of stars. But not really a canopy. That is too cliché. Is it an ocean? Almost, but it is really more like a soup. But not soup in a bowl. Soup on a tray, vast, huge, flat like me and desert ground. The ground and the sky trap me between, making a me-meat sandwich that the invisible giant could eat if it was hungry.

But I am the hungry one and I could use some tasty black soup with spicy silver stars.

I reach up and, with a finger, swirl the soup around, stir it up, make the stars spin and twirl. The soup is warm, but not hot. Perfect drinking temperature. If only I had a cup. Then I could drink the sky, drink it all down and not save any for later, just the way Vincent did. He saw the stars and the moon just as I see it now, with his magic sky eyes.

I catch a star on the end of my fingertip and pop it into my mouth where it tingles my tongue with its sharp bur shape, and then I crunch it between my teeth, flashing spearmint sparks in the dark.

I ate a bit of the moon once too. It tasted like dead leaves.