WEST

WEST

Joseph Young

We’d set off the rockets, there in the 4th of August. I pulled back on the wicks and was gone. Then I was alone, tool tumbled, fall from lad-ders. You left me there, oh surfeit of light.

I kept to the west shores. I had to. Did you believe we had time aboard? Yes, the hands always in themselves and God in the windows. That and the true work of en-gines.

At the rims things fell apart. I took on gas. The fins were broken. In suit, I sat at con-trol, ready for the coming stones. We steadied then and saw the angels.

The mission had always been simple: leave that terrible home. Amidst the rock and shore, I wrote you. Can you remember, the fire and your yellow hair?

The doldrums of the 6th ward, I was adrift. Echoes of an ugly god. The empty shone against the skin, lapped upon the eye.

With nothing to do, I shall be released. You won’t find me, not in rocket or shell, shore nor ward. See these banks of greater sky, oh surfeit of life.

WEST