as if to make a snow angel
limbs weightless
you drift untethered in space
an enormous visor obscures your face
but in its reflection the shuttle can be seen
and I imagine conspiracy theorists
searching the image for signs of a set-up
a Hollywood studio concoction
sanctioned by the government
to pull a swifty on the people
but I believe you
swam
completely and utterly devoid of any attachment to Earth
and I wonder if you would have minded
if you couldn’t have made your way back
destined to slow-spiral forever
like a plastic bag on a windy day
“to touch the face of God” they say
well, I’m not sure he is that close
or even that far away
I keep reading this.
ReplyDeleteLater I come back and read it more. And with never a thing I can meaningfully add. It is stange and frustrating to me, given how the image shocks like a deja vu, like a recurring but always straightaway awake-and-fade dream. I know I never actually had this dream. Deja vu is a memory-sensory malfunction. It is not a combination of precognition and amnesia.
I'm afraid, in the falsely-recovered memory of this place. Yet deeper than the memory, I know that in the dream, I am not afraid. Never afraid.
My waking mind knows it's all just tricks of brain-lightning. I insist I've never been there. I insist I won't go back. The former is just fact. The latter is (I think) what scares me.
Both the poem and the comment are amazing poetry.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jen.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jen.
ReplyDeleteHm, have I ripped off this comment yet for repurposal as poetry?
God, your poem, Mel.
ReplyDelete<3