"Space Needle"
for Stephen
Click here to listen to Kristin Fogdall read this poem.
If each foot took us back a year, the dark below would be immaculate, like a hole
in space, instead of stars,
or a jar of colored glass
someone shook
and scattered in a dream.
But from this height,
our childhood town
spreads out, a silver galaxy,
and tourists peer
into the giant metal scopes.
I scan the towers, walls
of windows, one small pane:
sofa, tiny people
face to face—a man
and woman talking,
as they may do every day,
or perhaps this is
the last time, or their first.
The lamp she crosses to
dims the room a darker gold.
It's like watching movies
on the wall at home
where we cavort across
some stretch of sand:
I want to step inside the frame
and take my own hands,
and look into my eyes,
and see what's true
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Kristin Fogdall's poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, Partisan Review, New England Review, and other journals. She lives in Vermont.
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