"Rocket" by Allison Hummel

Part 1: Untitled

It was yesterday or something, when I heard

the song playing in a store, asking

do I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet?

I don't sing it to myself, exactly, but I do repeat it,

metallic gyre, all the day long.

In the at-home lab of an electrical engineer,

I was surrounded by metallic gyres (not an industry term,)

tiny spools of wire thread that do not unwind

to fulfill their purpose.

I touched things carefully, understanding

none of them, vaguely

susceptible like a green bruise because

we had woken up in one another's

legs. Do I make myself a blessing?

(I really do. I am

not perfect, but lovely,

and a perceived dearth of this,

of lovely people, is just a

cultivated skew, benefiting whom?

It's like, capitalism.)

Anyway, unearthed Soviet

tubes filled with brief

forests of material mythos

surrounded me, hofbrau,

complex blessing. Engineer says:

…(the) reactors all disappeared

and who knows where they are. Each could kill

100,000 people.

He makes coffee, I sit on the lawn.

Oh, and at 1:47 we watched a rocket

ascend. It did not go straight up,

in case you are wondering.

Part 2: Rocket Ascent at Vandenberg

It appeared to experience

a horizontal epoch, a teendom.

Maybe meandering is part of all

great inclinations. I'm reminded of

"...the falcon cannot hear the falconer,"

but that's never really true, it's only a game.

The rocket could definitely hear the falconer,

and I feel sure that it still does,

even at this very moment.

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