AURORA

In the summer, we go on trips. The lawn grows, the moon rises
while we are gone. We read the billboards on the way down,
but coming back, they'll be different.
For a while we float, as made up as balloons.
We look at him in the front seat, hunched at stop lights,
sweat clinging to his white dress shirt.
We hear him curse and fumble with maps.

Right now, far above us, on the moon we won't see
for another five hours, Apollo is accomplishing its mission.
The kicked-up dust hangs behind them
in dead-air tendrils as they make their way.
Stuck in traffic jams and broiling heat, we think
of the possibilities that TV has taught us;
of the astronauts' re-entry failing, of them burning up
in orbit, reduced to nothing but meat.
We hit speed bumps, jolt into rest stops for blessed
soda pop and the terrifying urinals of adults.

Then, we're back in the back seat again, ready
to shuffle our toys, telling new stories
as the afternoon lengthens and the moon pulls into view.
It burns above the super-heated blue of the highway—
but there are men up there, there are men!
Down here, we are Army generals, glow-in-the-dark
Aurora models snatched from lacquered dresser tops:
Wolf-Man, Mummy, Frankenstein,
poised to strike with the perfectly-tanned sabre-tooth
at the last remnants of the Planet of the Apes.

We are the angry men we've yet to become.