Space

I have her hands. I hold things with them.
Never imagined we’d have cities on the moon
in our lifetimes. My spaceship has room
for my menagerie
and a swimming pool.

Sagan said, They should have sent a poet,
so here I paddle.

I’m floating
in a water womb
  in a metal egg
in the pool of space
and my stomach turns.

The dark of space looks like a cat’s pupil,
watching the smallest motion.
The line of her jaw in my mirror. I’ve always felt
humans are defined by hands.
We can build our imaginings to watch them
entertain and disappoint.

I poem galaxies—a carnival quartz occlusion,
caramelized sugar and variegated jazz.

I stencil ivy and rabbits along the corridors.
In the galley, I keep a pet planet.
I perform
in the auditorium, hear her southern vowels
slipping out vents.

There is not enough distance.

I hold my pen at the notebook of my species,
but it’s her hand I see. I nest in the taffeta vastness
of my life,
but flash to her hand
throwing a gin glass, her hand
scissoring buttons off a shirt.

Familiar gesticulation—arms that are radio waves
wiping particles and breakables off a nebula;           

                                        hands like mine
wording histrionics
and disappointment.                                                               

Distance
meets reach.

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Wren Tuatha is a queer, disabled, nonbinary poet who earned her MFA at Goddard College. Their first collection is Thistle and Brilliant (FLP). Her poetry has appeared in Silk Road, The Lake, Kaleidoscope, Pirene’s Fountain, Lavender Review, and others. They're founding editor at Califragile; formerly Artist-in-Residence at Heathcote Center. Wren and partner author/activist C.T. Butler herd rescue goats among the Finger Lakes of New York, where Wren is director of Ithaca Poetry Center.