August 19, 2020
453: You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm
August 19, 2020
453: You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm
This week, we're featuring poems related to outer space. Stars. Planets. Even aliens. What can we discover about ourselves, when we consider the cosmos?
You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm
by Paige Lewis
Sit on the park bench and chew this mint leaf. Right now, way above your head, two men floating in a rocket ship are ignoring their delicate experiments, their buttons flashing red. Watching you chew your mint, the men forget about their gritty toothpaste, about their fingers, numb from lack of gravity. They see you and, for the first time since liftoff, think home. When they were boys they were gentle. And smart. One could tie string around a fly without cinching it in half. One wrote tales of sailors who drowned after mistaking the backs of whales for islands. Does it matter which man is which? They just quit their mission for you. They’re on their way down. You’ll take both men — a winter husband and a summer husband. Does it matter which is — don’t slump like that. Get up, we have so much work to do before — wait you’re going the wrong way small whelp of a woman! this is not how we behave where are you going this world is already willing to give you anything do you want to know Latin okay now everyone here knows Latin want inflatable deer deer ! i promise the winter / summer children will barely hurt dear i’m hurt that you would ever think i don’t glisten to you i’m always glistening tame your voice and turn around the men are coming they’ve traded everything for you the gemmy starlight the click click click of the universe expanding stop aren’t you known aren’t you known here how can you be certain that anywhere else will provide more pears than you could ever eat remember the sweet rot of it all come back you forgot your sweater what if there’s nothing there when you — you don’t have your sweater what if it’s cold
"You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm," by Paige Lewis, from SPACE STRUCK by Paige Lewis, copyright © 2019 Paige Lewis. Used by permission of Sarabande Books.