translate me render me into the martian tongue
across the black night
where the gun stock reaches the star.
beheaded houses hum in the gloom.
the neck vertebra of the torn staircases are exposed.
The child hums as he carries, too late, / his grandmother’s sugar-dusted lemon-glazed cake …
It’s come to this. Since last February I haven’t
touched you or anyone, save for my mechanic,
but that was by accident and in March and it
was only a handshake because I forgot he could
kill me without meaning to and, besides, I’ve known
him since junior high school.
Image: “Alignment II” by John Paul Caponigro. “The Space Between” was written by Amelie Flagler for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Got up this morning thinking about going to see my daughter.
Which led to thinking about the remote for the garage door opener
which had stopped working when I replaced the battery.
When I returned to earth after forty thousand years / there were no more graves, no more cathedrals.