Outside, America by Sarah de Leeuw

Author:Sarah de Leeuw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poetry
ISBN: 9780889711433
Publisher: Nightwood Editions
Published: 2019-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

You Re-entered the Atmosphere

feeling weightless in the tin machine, pinned,

a few steps closer

to early-onset osteoporosis

floating

into celebrity status

tweeting, YouTubing, and pleased

with your twilight twirling guitar

edge of blue-planet Earth

shining through your beyond-gravity rendition

of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

Astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield calling

Major Tom, calling Major Tom, tell your wife

you love her very much.

The same day back

down on the ground

Captain Karl Lilgert is convicted

of criminal negligence causing death.

All us earthlings gather along

northern coastlines, slack-jawed

at the Pacific, Earth’s great big,

blue wondering

about that great white

sinking ship,

allegations of stoned

sex on the Queen of the North’s bridge deck,

a former lover, still married,

the ship’s second-in-command.

I imagine the two

who drowned.

Hearing the deep groans

of buckling metal

water-dulled thudding as cars

and transport trucks stack one

on  top  of  the  other

the draught hull

no longer vertical to the sea’s surface, bowls

half-full of clam chowder

suddenly bumping against ceiling lights.

The ocean floor is like outer space, I hear.

Creaking portholes are your new songbirds.

The dawn is pitted, like beetle tracks

in driftwood

that sometimes sink close to you.

Slowly, sightless fish settle

in on starfish-patterned carpets.

You shut your eyes, learning

to dance standing on your

father’s feet, moving

like a dream

across the living room floor,

everything suspended in water.

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