~
"memory runs back farther than mythology."

two years,
two months,
and two days,

in a cabin they built
near Walden Pond.

on a mission of gravity,
the heavens forming a spotlight
on centrifugal force,
abroad the hollow mind,

chronically untethered.

"I went to the woods to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms..."

this ship's captain was an architect,
but her starblazing failed
to break ground,
so this life is now a structure settled upon sand,

and way out yonder,
where there is
no blade of grass,
just weeds growing out from under the floor.

but her daughters are
grinning magnets,
passionate machines.

"copy that?...," asks Houston.

she takes a long, hard swallow,
the shadow of a bell
inspiring the astronaut in her
to shoot for incapable stars,
but the bell she hears now
is that of an alarm clock
telling her it's time to wake up:

shoulders straight.
hands free.
arms strong.
fingers stiff.
chronically untethered.

she's not looking for new days,
she is a new day,
compacted out of water,
tired of changing real estate
and showering with
other people's success.

those loud kids, her kids, play
down the hall, in the beehive.

radio jargon's on full blast too
and telling her where
to buy and sell today's instant pleasure.

she's busy now with self-stimulation,
Betty Dodson Method,
then mixing orange powder
with 100 year old whiskey
kept in the lunar module:

it's a spacewalk to eternity, faster-than-light:

she sees broken pool tables
and backyard swings.

she sees 'ordinary'
checked off on the calendar.

she sees 'happiness'
hiding in an old photo of Murphy's Camp.

she wakes to
her husband, Houston,
in a holding pattern,
she feels him moving, whispering,
and touching something
far off inside of her,
but not moored
in a specific time or place.

in search of where
she now exists
(if she even existed at all),
her memories feel artificial
in that she lacks
the emotional attachment
that comes with
actually having lived them.

there are no answers, no choices.
only reactions.
it is always going to be
that broken state of things:
these days of heaven,
chronically untethered.

"only that day dawns to which I'm awake. there is more day to dawn, I suppose. and like us, the sun is but a morning star upon being dreamed into existence..."
~