Pow! Poof! Whiz!
The moon smells like firecrackers.
Have you been paying attention?
You can either wish it away or inject
yourself with saline solution.
Either way, oh well.
Either way, oh boy.
We know three things for sure
and you’re not one of them.
So what, you have no predators.
Your cell phone conversations belong
to someone else.
If these stones could talk, they’d probably
say nothing.
Either that or they’d say thump and deliver
us from evil.
Well then, what are you worried about?
The moon tastes like Reddi-Wip.
Whenever the moon goes plop you gear up
for a legal battle because you lack imagination.
Because you’re maybe just some kind of sissy.
Whenever you open your mouth the darkness
within stumbles out in an unbuttoned shirt
in search of a vodka martini.
*
Awe and Wonder
I wish I were a constellation that could
coalesce into a rhinestone heart.
I wish the flawed experiments funded
by our government would reveal some
sacred truth.
I’m concerned about the boom in DNA analysis.
I worry about the nature of time.
Sometimes I wonder about dirt.
Must I inject myself with the blood of human
teenagers to be astonishing?
Must I have a pig’s heart beating in my chest?
I want to conquer death, like the mega rich,
then I’d be worthy of your love.
Your smartphone’s now connected
to my Bluetooth speaker.
You are my everything.
Galaxies, galaxies everywhere.
I wish I could stop thinking about Neanderthals
touching each other.
I wish you were touching me.
At least the bot thinks I am cute.
The bot thinks I’ll live forever.
The bot’s holding its breath.
*
Elizabeth Marie Young is a Boston-based poet and educator. She spent a decade as a professor of ancient Greek and Roman languages and literature and has published widely on the poetry and culture of ancient Rome. Her first book of poems, Aim Straight at the Fountain and Press Vaporize, won the Motherwell Prize from Fence Books. She is also the author of Translation as Muse: Poetic Translation in Catullus’s Rome, a book about the ancient Roman understanding of lyric translation and literary creativity. She has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center and the Squire Foundation. Her poems have recently appeared in journals including The Chicago Review, Painted Bride Quarterly and Sugar House Review.
