Today’s Throwback Thursday selection is “One Moon in Binoculars,” from Heather McHugh’s 1988 collection Shades.

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One Moon in Binoculars

How could this homely instrument
have power to pull
the whole moon closer,
hold ten textures in
the intimacy of a glance?
The silvers tremble severally
splashed and sanded,
spine-wise, spidery,
in sharp and shadowed
pocks upon the plain. The view

is black and white, but brighter than TV,
clearer than sand in a glass of vodka,
shivering, with each
detail distilled
down to the pebbles
of ocular grain. To cast an eye
across its wild serenities
is to be glad

you cannot see that otherworldly flag
(our worldly flag, that is). They stuck it
flat and stiff up there, because
there is no wind. They made
an outdoor ad, a small design
upon the grand. We might as well

have called the moon American, and raised
a dollar sign above the silver land.

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HEATHER MCHUGH is the author of many poetry collections, including Upgraded to Serious, Eyeshot (shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize), The Father of Predicaments, Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968–1993 (finalist for the National Book Award), Shades, To the Quick, and A World of Difference. She is also the author of a collection of literary essays and three books of translation. She edited the Academy of American Poets’ anthology New Voices: University and College Prizes, and served as the 2007 guest editor for the Best American Poetry series.