TRAVELS IN OUTER SPACE
Piotr Gwiazda
There is no moon on planet Venus.
It is colder than we thought on Mars.
Jupiter is an immense son of a gun.
Neptune? Pluto? I can’t tell the difference.
Nothing compares with the asteroid belt.
The solar wind can be unpleasant sometimes.
We saw a white dwarf, then a black hole.
Everyone spoke English, of course.
That’s Cowboy Crater, that’s Disney Nebula
and this is Sirius, casino star.
This picture didn’t come out right.
Thank you for coming! Next time—Paris.
AARDVARK, FAT
grunting, ridiculous
orycteropus afer
earth-pig, ant-guzzler
a snorting hybrid
cocked eyes, pricked ears
snout dripping mucus
the ugliest mammal
staggered onto my desk
on baby legs, knocked
down the lamp, scratched
the computer screen
with grotesque claws
tremendous tongue
feeling for termites
in the keyboard, tail
like a man’s forearm
scattering my typescripts
spilling my espresso (!)
before it lumbered back
to page 1 of Webster’s
Unabridged Dictionary
EVIDENCE
1
A helicopter hovers above the city center
2
A girl is playing in front of a statue
3
A truck blows a tire, startling hundreds of pigeons
4
A lonely tourist photographs a skyscraper
5
A bald official steps into a limousine
6
A squirrel delves into an empty lunch bag
7
A knife-store clerk lights up a cigarette
8
A man waits for a woman who will not come
9
A radio is playing Bach’s Air in C Major
10
A traffic light turns green
Piotr Gwiazda’s poems have
appeared in Barrow Street, Columbia, Drunken
Boat, Hotel Amerika, Margie, The Southern Review,
Talisman, and elsewhere. His book of poems, Gagarin
Street was published by Washington Writers’ Publishing
House in 2005.
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