travu2
The Fly
I.
Odd little astronauts
conduct sobering spacewalks.
And even with the weather
preoccupied as it is,
they continue to spin their pinwheels.
II.
Insects are quietly spiraling
under the street lights.
Pale cacti are on display,
and every window is dark.
Front yards are overrun
with ghost-town barnacles
that drift up the mountainside
from a sea of stars and fossils.
Little astronaut sitting
on the moonlit rocks, listening
to their blind scraping
down in the shadows.
III.
There is an old landfill
far from the highway.
There is a shallow pool
of electric light.
A faint breeze is rustling
the weeds that grow
from the gray strata,
where crickets are chirping
and a broken phone line is still
leaking the voice of a shy girl.
IV.
There?s a bench in the park,
under the trees,
where she used to sleep,
where she once saw
an astronaut floating
through the tall grass.
V.
She?s feeling small outside that house,
her tiny lung left exposed
on her bed.
Everywhere the wind is kissing
with nature, and she is lost
somewhere in its grassy halls.
Every other piece of the world
is communicating without her;
she can feel its tendrils in the summer.
VI.
A leafy branch is writhing in the street.
And as the yellow ants quietly
repair her dreaming parents,
her body is channeled between
their treated pools,
through a cool wash, alongside
the ragweed,
slowly coming to rest
with the simple things around the drain.
She has always been a glacier
hiding at the back of their busy valley.
VII.
In the peripheral neighborhood
just before light comes back on tour
from some sluggish, dust-moat country,
when you can still find
the working parts of dreams
scrambling up
through a dewy mesh of air,
she can only feel
an astronaut?s blank stare,
as it plucks the pearl
from her heavenly body.
VIII.
Odd little astronauts
conduct sobering spacewalks.
And no matter how hard she tries
to communicate with you,
they continue to spin their pinwheels.
Odd little astronauts
conduct sobering spacewalks.
And even with the weather
preoccupied as it is,
they continue to spin their pinwheels.
II.
Insects are quietly spiraling
under the street lights.
Pale cacti are on display,
and every window is dark.
Front yards are overrun
with ghost-town barnacles
that drift up the mountainside
from a sea of stars and fossils.
Little astronaut sitting
on the moonlit rocks, listening
to their blind scraping
down in the shadows.
III.
There is an old landfill
far from the highway.
There is a shallow pool
of electric light.
A faint breeze is rustling
the weeds that grow
from the gray strata,
where crickets are chirping
and a broken phone line is still
leaking the voice of a shy girl.
IV.
There?s a bench in the park,
under the trees,
where she used to sleep,
where she once saw
an astronaut floating
through the tall grass.
V.
She?s feeling small outside that house,
her tiny lung left exposed
on her bed.
Everywhere the wind is kissing
with nature, and she is lost
somewhere in its grassy halls.
Every other piece of the world
is communicating without her;
she can feel its tendrils in the summer.
VI.
A leafy branch is writhing in the street.
And as the yellow ants quietly
repair her dreaming parents,
her body is channeled between
their treated pools,
through a cool wash, alongside
the ragweed,
slowly coming to rest
with the simple things around the drain.
She has always been a glacier
hiding at the back of their busy valley.
VII.
In the peripheral neighborhood
just before light comes back on tour
from some sluggish, dust-moat country,
when you can still find
the working parts of dreams
scrambling up
through a dewy mesh of air,
she can only feel
an astronaut?s blank stare,
as it plucks the pearl
from her heavenly body.
VIII.
Odd little astronauts
conduct sobering spacewalks.
And no matter how hard she tries
to communicate with you,
they continue to spin their pinwheels.
