Letter to Grandma
Radio Telescope in Love with Space
I can listen
I can listen all-day
I do listen all day,
and all night too for that matter…
But if I could pack
more days in each year
more hours in each day
more minutes in each hour
more seconds in each minute
I would—
Just for you.
Just so I could
process your voice
whispering in frothy galaxies
sighing away dimming stars
shouting blackholes through
my antenna.
I like it best when
my face is turned up.
It must be toward you.
Or do I only imagine
that you warm me with your gaze,
only to cool me with indifference
over and over
warm, cool, warm, cool
until the two blur
into that general feeling of you.
Your world fills mine,
but fragmentally.
I’m terrified…
that I may never understand
you— all of you.
I wake up from dreams shivering,
where I’m invisible,
floating in a vast sea of your presence.
But what horrifies me more
is that I’m listening to
some echo of you
and that you no longer exist.
And then I dwell on my own death…
It’s nearer now than it once was.
I’ve heard the men who work on me
brag of a smaller sharper
younger system
that will replace my bulky shell.
I hope they unbolt me,
for I know humans have hearts.—
bundled me in a rocket
and send me up to meet you,
and then, and then;
who knows what
then…
Morning Voice (mountain research station)
The extended groan of the door,
bare feet whisking across carpeting
Melissa’s staccato typing
punctuated by a dry cough
that collapses the article I’m reading,
the couch beneath me,
leveling the floor and spaces
separating us
I’m one of two conscious people
in a sleeping house
Gusts of wind push at the house,
defining its sheltered interior;
A constant electric buzz
betrays the hidden workings
behind walls
My first-story perch
opens up to the larger common room;
triangular windows capturing blue sky
and the poised bell-like lights,
hanging patiently, waiting
to be switch back into life
The drip of fluid—
Coffee and showers,
more feet, zippers, Snuffling,
over the flick of turned pages,
and the jostling and tinkling,
of kitchen wares
A smell and popping sizzle
declarative of fried eggs
on cheap vegetable oil
The ribbon whispers of the conscientious,
solo then weaving together, and around each other
attempting to both preserve and breach the silence
