David Eileen
Poem beginning with Duolingo practice sentence
Mi abuelo quiere morir en su país. It’s not my tongue
but I like to practice naming what my grandfather can’t have:
for this red field to be his & his only, for the kids
who earnest up to his door for pocket money & his back
breaking tasks to not all be on dope & to still gloat he knows
why nobody wants work anymore.
In my hands: tomatoes
come to scarlet on the vine, basil perfumes itself against me.
Not one drop of the old ways wets my palms.
My grandfather wants to know that when he dies, his legacy
will choke our trees like poison oak, that forgiveness
afforded to him has not been separated
from our agreement to keep his secrets.
In my country: a woman
stands to open curtains at the threshold & when her long hair
lowers a flag over her shoulder, I understand the language.
ODE TO THE ASTRONAUT WHO MISTOOK HIS OWN PISS FOR STARS
for John Glenn
Like your furrowed brow was a funnel you stuffed
your skull with dry numbers & still
wonder did not escape you
eggheady breath now fresh with the tube scent of bottled air
canned numbers & oxygen gossamer around you
in the twin mathematics of your lungs
sparkling as smart as water.
You as a vessel for the hopes of flesh
that flight denied
& you that gorgeous moment with the whole universe
a urinal— isn’t it just a miracle
to make water? Your body
a few times good enough
to recycle your life
if you pinch your nose.
In space
who can say what hangs
our incandescent copper stars, hot filaments
eating their scorching selves in silence, but you
who really did
like a lesser god behind a visor
fix mystic orbs in sharp relief
while your radio chatter tripped
between wonder & laughter?
David Eileen is an Ohio native who earned his MFA from Florida Atlantic University while Editor-in-Chief of the school’s literary magazine, Swamp Ape Review. They are currently a poetry editor for Alien Magazine. Their work has appeared in The Atlantic, Diagram, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Best of the Net, among others. You can find more of them at david-eileen.com
