Pretenders

at camp there are fires

every night by the river

and the orange sparks

from the fires

fly up, pretending

to be stars

they rise by the heat

of their burning

before floating

down dead onto my skin

like snowflakes

because space is empty of all

but black

and white

My Summer Vacation

Missiles were part of the economy. People said, "two more built in Colorado," the same way they said gas prices were up and the NASDAQ was down. The strange thing was that though everyone knew there were missiles being built, few asked, "where are they now?" Which looking back from here, seems an important question.

Where they were, was a secret. Where they were, was buried in the desert. The ones in the Black Hills only a few miles from farmers who still used horses to plow the fields. The rocket ships, capable of flying without a man and destroying large chunks of the earth, did not belong in that place, in that time, buried in the earth that some politicians threw over their metal gleam, to keep them hidden.

And one day the war was done. The farmers started using tractors. The newspapers said, "RUSSIA NEGOTIATES THE END!" and people forgot about rocket ships. Tourists started walking around in the Black Hills, so a few nerds who remembered scraped out the plutonium and put it in the government's freezer, to keep for a rainy day. Meanwhile, South Dakota, to keep the tourists amused and alive, put up guard rails and signs that said, "BEWARE RATTLESNAKES," and, "THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRAIRIEDOG," but not, "LOOK OUT FOR MISSILES!" or, "A SIMPLE DIAGRAM OF PLUTONIUM (alert authorities if found)"

There were lots of signs in the Black Hills, though you would think it was enough to look at the candy striped rock while hiking the edges of dusty cliffs, and glimpsing the fluffy tail end of a goat leaping into space before landing in an impossible hoof-hold. But it wasn't. And one day a sign was pounded into the ground beside a beat up shed by the last gas station before a long stretch of pure, government protected rock.

The sign was crowded with pictures: buried rocket ships, smiling farmers, serious politicians pointing at maps with long fingers that had just stopped pounding the glossy tabletop. The sign had a map of the U.S., a map of us, relative to the locations of rockets. And there were arrows pointing into the desert, to reveal their true present position. And there were arrows pointing

at Russia, in case anyone wondered where they could go.

The words, which were short and curled in small chunks in order to hold the attention of a bored tourist, told how once we had the best weapons arsenal on earth, but our rocket ships are forgotten now, and uselessly rusty like the rest of the secrets our country holds. Really.

Gas prices are up again.

Capturing Wonder

The full moon was out, and at first, that was all that made the drive special. Moonlight, tree shadow, the dull thud, thud, th-thud of bug bodies piling onto the windshield. But then, over the hill, a light began to rise, a second moon peeking over the horizon. The headlights of the other car illuminated a cloud of millions of bubbles, jostling back and forth, as tightly packed as a school of fish, or a can of cherries. The seething light swirled upwards continuously, losing its definition in the space of dark between the headlights and the moon.

"What...is..." I breathed, it was magic, it was alive, it was...

My brother flopped his arm onto the armrest, "A plague."

"You mean, they're..."

"Mayflies. Isn't it gross?" His bored expression was briefly illuminated as the car passed us.

Th-th-th-th-thud.

But...they were so beautiful. I wanted to capture that instant before I knew that mayflies could be beautiful; pin it down with brush strokes, and a keyboard. But it didn't work the way I intended. All I could order out was a mildly pretty description of headlights, chased by a cynical revelation, and butchered with a self referential paragraph guiltily explaining my clumsy attempt. I hoped vaguely that it came close enough to the truth.

That Night; We Chased Stars

sometimes stars get lost

and all the blank darkness of space

becomes twisted and rolls

into a face painted with moonlight

and the flaming ball of gas

flees the confusion, blinking

why, please, what

is this

the place

I'm supposed to be

is this

sometimes

children who have only learned

to say why

and are working on the rest

capture the lost stars

and race back

to their sleepy mothers

shaking the glowing jars

yelling, look mama! Fire

flies

Do you remember, Rebecca? The family reunion, and the old playhouse at Aunt Rowena's, when we found old jars, filled them with lightning bugs, and lined them up on the cobwebbed shelves? It was dark, and all we could see was the sparkle of their lights, and the moon through the cracked windowpane. You said it was magical.

enter. space.

My boyfriend bought me a typewriter. Found it

in a grey suitcase with a tricky lock on a long table full of Christmas

characters: sassy reindeer, lean, Great-Depression Santas,

one virtuous Mrs. Claus. There was a choir too, full of little boys with bright 

round O-mouths and angel robes.

The typewriter was among these things, singing louder

than the sopranos and blue,

old-fashioned, kitchen-appliance blue,

like my dad’s first sports car, and my mother’s matching dress.

A tough guy said for five dollars, that baby

was mine. He said five dollars to take it

off my hands.

As we left, he felt the tickle

of loss in his fingernails. He remembered

the keys and the alphabet, mostly, the electric strike

of the machine, and the army son

who left-it-all

and-a-lighter

in Lafayette, the Midwest. What he forgot was that soprano

shade of plastic and dust, the aging baby-

blue, and why it mattered

even a little.