i.m. Neil Armstrong
like a visor. My space-helmeted face exposed
to the vacuum; breath floating out my mouth in green
strata, drifting Northern lights to Saturn. I was puffs
of glittering powder scuffed from boot-steps and marine
in my leaps from one toe to the next, swimming through grease.
Who could have caught me? A helium swelled suit, a piece
of satellite junk bearing the hammer and sickle.
There is nothing out here in the desert. F-16's
gone to rust. The nose-cone of a boeing, crashed
on reconnaissance. The inferno gone out, ash
stains the sand with fuselage ghosts. Solar blown,
I am somewhere like the moon, taking off my jeans
and shirt to shiver and yell, let the air prickle
my elbows and spine. I harden to graphite in ice drifts
that polish me. Diamond. An asteroid belt. Touchdown.
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