Imagine you're on Mars, looking at earth,
a swirl of colors in the distance.
Tell us what you miss most, or least.

Let your feelings rise to the surface.
Skim that surface with a tiny net. 
Now you're getting the hang of it.

Tell us your story slantwise,
streetwise, in the disguise
of an astronaut in his suit.     

Tell us something we didn't know
before: how words mean things
we didn't know we knew.

The first Space Shuttle launch got delayed until

Sunday, so we had to watch the Shuttle’s return

to Earth in class instead—PS113’s paunchy black

& white rolled in, the antennae on top adjusted

sideways & down for better reception. That same

day, Garrett stole my new pencil box. That same

day, Cynthia peed her jeans instead of going

to the bathroom & letting Garrett steal her pencil

box. Both of us too upset to answer questions about

space flight, so we get sent to the back of the class.

I smelled like the kind of shame that starts a fight

on a Tuesday afternoon. Cynthia smelled like pee

& every-day Jordache. The shuttle made its slick way

back to Earth, peeling clouds from the monochromatic

sky & we all—even the astronomically marginal—

were winners. American, because a few days before,

a failed songwriter put a bullet in the President

in the name of Jodie Foster. The shuttle looked

like a bullet, only with wings & a cockpit, & when

it finally landed, the class broke into applause

& the teacher snatched a thinning American flag

from the corner, waved it back & forth in honor

of our wounded President & those astronauts.

I am a body schooling,
a ball of fish, flashing
and many, in these early days
of feeling, of love.

When I learned,
hours ago, of fish songs
that swell like birdsong
in the morning,

how they foghorn or buzz
for food, or mates
or space, I thought,
now aren’t I a humming thing?

Yes, you say,
a body of oceans
and marvelous.

And the sea anemone in me,
              growing on the wreckage
of an old ship—

              can they grow that way,
              I wonder, on an ending—

                          Still this bright and tentacled
anthozoan polyp,
              which reaches and filters
                                                            whatever it needs
                          from this strong current,
              and the current too that carries
                                                            the sea cucumbers,
              the rough mammals,
                          the life, both vertebrate
                                                            and invertebrate,
even the batfish,
                          the black jewfish,
              and the terapontid,

it all swells and breaks in me
like a chorus at dusk.