Solving 17

Dear Neil Armstrong,

I write this to you as she sleeps down the hall.
I need answers that only you might have.

…

By any chance
did you write her name in the dirt
when the cameras weren’t looking?

Or maybe you surrounded both your initials with a heart
for alien life to study a million years from now.

What is it like to love someone so distant?
What words did you use to bring the moon back to her?
What did you promise in the moon’s ear about the girl back home?
Can you teach me how to fall from the sky?

I ask you these things
not because I doubt your feat.
I just want to know what it’s like
to go somewhere no man had ever been
only to discover she wasn’t there,
to realize your moon walk could never
compare to the steps that lead to her.