Lately, space is on my mind.

A man improbably named Felix jumped

from the edge of space to the skin of earth

like Alan Shepard or the Silver Surfer.

The first commercial spaceliner docked

with an orbiting payload to hand over some stuff,

a convenience store millions of feet up.

A rover landed on Mars; Curiosity

sent back color pictures. I’ve wondered

what color that planet is.

I think a lot about empty things,

things we fill, things we drain,

things we gain and can’t abandon,

things we lose and can’t get back.

I think of it drifting in a suit of flesh,

tethered so it could not be lost

but was no matter what, the sudden flash

of decompression, debris crashing.

Not so much rescued as fished out of the drink.

I salute intrepid travelers everywhere,

your bravery in facing danger.

Reach further: through the yonder

where blue turns black.

After Richard Hugo

Over two weeks ago. Door nails and dodos.

He’s giving me his laptop and his smartphone.

I don’t know what to do with dead people’s stuff.

He told me, that last visit, he just wanted to die.

I wanted it, too. But now I don’t.

I just want a beer, both of us growing fat,

talking liberal politics, contesting the other’s grammar.

It’s a cold rain outside, I’m shivering and writing

in the house of Big Macs.

I could drink a quart of eggnog.

I could drink six quarts of rum.

But none of it will help me out

when it comes.

He had no kids. Neither have I.

There’s no “you” to outlast you.

There’s no “you” when you die.

Do you remember where you were

the day a Mac truck robot died?

Or maybe it was different for you:

a parent, a pet, old Ben Kenobi,

but the switch just flipped, and something real

went away for awhile. And awhile was forever.

It kept happening, too. Lassie and Mr. Rogers.

Harambe. Prince. Bowie. Petty.

Your cranky grandmother who pestered you

to put the book down and socialize.

Your one and only seventh-grade friend.

The almost-child you never met.

Good news: most fates are worse. And death

is the happy ending we all receive.

I’m funny that way, happy-go-lucky.

See you when I don’t, my friend.

I was fever child she sang to me

sweet-sounding grace amazed she soothed

flame-red leaves shining fall to crunch

brown and shush my feet lullaby

still keep it will pass you will

sleep for a long time

clear liquid pain button pillow sheet white

do nothing not think anything wait

for sad time to come glad it comes

hold baby blanket bundle bad grief

love it rock it nurse

sleep for a long time

friends holding hand holding head

cry drink wine toast them all

in happy sad time keep let go

water lap smoke rise soul saves

and gone soon warm ground bed

sleep for a long time

They ring the bell and run.

I should expect it tonight. It’s the night

our house covered in white paper

soaks up turned eggs and the flaming brown bag.

The gourd is crushed, tradition fulfilled.

There’s sugar on my hands

melted, waxy. I give it up

I offer it freely.

My clothing is changed, the harvest brought in.

Descend storm clouds, raindrops, leaves.

I carry my head in my hands

like an orange basketball, jaw framed

and candle lit, stuck deep in my mouth

silent, illuminated.

Children are dressed carefully, tended.

They line up at the doorstep,

the ghosts receiving my blessings

this year, this season.

I’m snarling. I’m howling at the moon.

I’m not a man.

I’m not weeping.

A sentence glistened, trembling for a moment

then nailed a three-point landing like F-22’s

hit the wire and jerk to a stop.

It was throwaway, not something that mattered.

With the family cook I’m a witty raconteur,

dazzling and brilliant, unprejudiced

by my years away, able to take and leave

and accept what changed, keep old times in a pocket

like a favorite pen to cradle at my leisure.

With elderly churchgoers my air is easy,

describing where I live now and what I do,

the quiz phrased the same every time.

I’ve honed and polished the wording,

got everything right absolutely to convey

exactly the balance and proportions desired,

what little I meant and no more.

It’s a different story with the few friends I have left

but the same exact story with clumsy narration,

syntax crippled beneath its own weight.

Words are heavier, muscles not practiced

in throwing across the distance between us.

Can you strain your soul through an opening

as small as a mouth?

My school days tutor decimates me,

the woman who taught me the language I knew.

Mistakes amplify, magnify, calcify,

a monument to ignorance and the time I’ve wasted.

I fumble and stammer and beg

for reprieve like an inmate. I whimper

and am grateful when she prefers to play music,

vintage standards from the Great Patriotic War

covered as minimalist hip-hop.

It’s sanctuary to sit with my phone

as other voices take over,

silence on the kitchen stools lets sound wash over,

removing the pressure of everything lost,

the things we never get back.