Note to readers: Lately, I'm polishing up both my poetry and prose, as I will be doing a ton of submitting in the next few months, to literary magazines and contests. This is a new poem that I just finished, hoping it is the first step in producing material worthy of publication. Enjoy.
Manned
for the first to let me touch
when NASA announced the suspension of the shuttle program
I was suddenly slapped by recollection of your thighs,
cosmic, other worldly vessels
all thrusters and rockets
sparking thought of
exotic lands
you taught my fingers to be payloads,
delivered expertly, with missions in mind,
you hid your treasures, a trove on Mars
and demanded I find a path to them
I was a rover, probing happily
oh, to sojourn those corners, seeking truth!
sunset spilled across our
pores, like sweat,
until we lay, stretches of untamed red terrain
your lips, extraterrestrial beings
taught me their language in
short, sweet spurts
finished, fluent, I relayed my findings
your smile communicated
that you concurred
I’m not sure if we can call that
summer successful, once we collected our
samples, we sought reentry,
back to those lives where the
lights didn’t blink
across our weightless bodies like
provoked stars
in my mouth, the feint taste of uncharted rivers,
the air smells of a foreign mixture
somewhere between acceptance and need,
on my skin, I feel yours, this
phantom land
where I once fingered my way
through your lack of gravity and swore
I reached Heaven, as a man
