Harbinger by Shelley Puhak

Author:Shelley Puhak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

portrait of the artist watching the space shuttle explode

we’re lined up

in rows on the lice-infested carpet

picking at

swoops on factory-second sneakers

poking

each other with booger-slicked fingers

squinting

at the TV screen, at the snake of smoke, until

the o!

and the worst was not

the felt-and-glue rocket ships

or all our poems

in the school newsletter

(their souls are walking on air)

we already knew

they liked to cut all the corners

maybe we even knew

that two

astronauts

at least two

survived the finger of smoke

crooked across the screen

and during the teachers’ dumb o!

were switching on

the emergency oxygen

The worst was

asking us to forgive

and forget

in felt-and-glue

what we already knew—

the reflex to flick that switch

to keep conscious right up until

impact.

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