ROCKET LOUNGE
Americans
fell for Desire's fantasy of endless mobility, unleashing horses beneath metallic hoods,
stretching Pegasus to hundreds of cylindrical feet,
burning billions of barrels of love
gasoline.
Prime ribs sizzle, burnt
offerings dye the sky magenta,
darkness lengthens behind the brightest of scientific
minds who whispered of outer space beneath the roar
of their missiles pouring onto London's population.
Invited
after World War II to work with "ordinary people in ordinary
towns" like Alamogordo, where a girl's mischievous shadow leaves her mother's timid life for a world leading
down to a generic rocket anchored to a pole, a modern reading
of the cigar store Indian who sold his fiery soul for a sign
of illusionary flight.
