Let me carry the baby
dislocate my disappointment
Artemis still on the launching pad
let me take a selfie with the moon
with the baby eating a banana
I unbox my Snoopy doll before
a stuffed dog or sheep in a NASA suit
spirals toward an orbiting rock
frozen as I imagine my body
in a cryogenic chamber before
another apocalyptic isolation
where I sleep folded into your chest
like three dozen roses fragile-
blossomed and crushable
not a bud denuded or petal bruised
I know Artemis will deliver Orion
burn another crater into a body of empty rivers
dusty as spent confetti blowing through
a shuttered dance hall by the water
where I remember jazz music and stars
shooting above your bed dressed
in white linen our bodies spinning
spinning in unearthly euphoria
that was never mine but here I am
goddess of the hunt stirring the ashes
bound to this place by a gravity
I cannot escape and like a rocket
waiting for fiery propulsion
reentry into the wilderness
Let me carry this baby
like a piece of moon returning
to moon from those decades when
men mined a fragile surface
before your last words
start the countdown, flip the ignition
and a love poem flames into elegy
—
Dawn Terpstra is a poet, writer and beekeeper living in Iowa. Her granddaughter believes she lives in the Enchanted Forest full of lights and woodland creatures. Her recent work appears in Flint Hills Review, Mom Egg Review and Briar Cliff Review. She is an MFA student in creative writing at Pacific Lutheran University.
© 2022, Dawn Terpstra
Halfway Down the Stairs 