Flyball  

Sputnik turned the sky to a sinister eye
I swept with a plastic telescope,
listening each time the news played
those illegible bleeps. Saturdays
I pored over diagrams of parabolic
flight at the Rocketeers’ Academy and
snuck into the garage at night
to mix charcoal, flower of sulfur
and saltpeter on Dad’s hotplate
while all around me little houses
glowed under streetlights in need
of my protection. I snapped my wings,
the balsa splintered. I got glue
everywhere, filled the garage
with smoke. Last chance I punched a hole
in a little metal film canister
filled it with my remaining fuel
added tiny ragged fins.

Alone one evening I took that thing
to the baseball field and lit the fuse.
It went up—a magical scarab I watched
arc over Pittsburgh, disappear
into the smog. I searched the woods
behind the outfield but it was lost.
Of course, Kennedy later promised
a man on the moon and what I did
with some film can seemed like nothing
though that night it felt like joining a nation
with my radio, hotplate, and match. I never
told a soul about the time
I watched the spark I created vanish
and hoped it would get caught up there
in that terrible dark infinity I had just
made material—a bunch of loose
change you jingle in your pocket.