Lost Astronaut

Marc Alan Di Martino

A black hole in the shape of Massachusetts

sucks the light of history

through her frail bones and soft, translucent skin

the way she used to breathe cooked flesh

off a drumstick

at Thanksgiving dinner. I formed

in her depths as an astronaut, untethered,

orbiting the local stars. Suddenly

and without warning I floated away

forever

and have been floating ever since.

Marc Alan Di Martino's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Baltimore Review, Palette Poetry and many other places, and is forthcoming in the anthologies Unsheathed: 24 Contemporary Poets Take Up the Knife and What Remains: The Many Ways We Say Goodbye. His first collection, UNBURIAL, will be published in 2020 by Kelsay Books. He currently lives in Perugia, Italy with his family, where he works as a teacher and translator.