To the Astronaut:
On Impact
by Lisa Fay Coutley
I understand. I do. I used to lie back
flat against asphalt & take our moon
through binoculars—hands steady
as the dead’s. I understand a planet is
its history of impact, what gets ripped
away & what gets left. The moon struck
from here flickers one brilliant sigh, one
small mouth stunned in the night, saying
nothing of two bodies about to collide.
Remember the way your legs dangled
over volcanic rock, the sun pressing
so heavy against the water we were
forced to bow? There’s no prayer now.
Just histories that can only be told
given distance & time. Can’t you see
from there—how a target arches
to meet the body cast into its moment
of shared light? I understand the evidence
is the catastrophe. To be defined. You
chortled. You snored. You chewed this sky.
Lisa Fay Coutley is the author of Errata (Southern Illinois University Press, 2015), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Award, and In the Carnival of Breathing (Black Lawrence Press, 2011), winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition. She is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.