Joseph Harrington

Stanzas in Trepidation  

“Are you the Joseph Harrington who wrote

‘On the Orbit of Exoplanet WASP-12b?” asks

an email from Academia.edu,

based in San Francisco, California.       

No, I am not.

But now I am curious about Exoplanet WASP-12b,

because sometimes I feel that is

where I dwell, as the temperature promises

to drop to -11 F tomorrow; as the creaks,

cracks, and cranks of my body start to add up.

Or maybe Exoplanet WASP 12b approaches us.

*

Cloudy music on a salt-covered road:

we are all alone here on this exoplanet

& our symptoms make us all the same.

“You’ve proven you’re a human.

 Continue your action.”

“We’re out as soon as flooding comes, helping our neighbors.

I find it extremely upsetting

watching people carrying out

their wet furniture . . . . I feel quite frustrated

that we’re left on our own to deal with this.”

“We have been living in constant fear since witnessing

something we never thought possible.”

List five things you did last week.

List five things you remember about your life.

*

train stations do not move, it’s the planet that does;

blue in the air implies protection from the dark, and   

“this year, the skies have remained stubbornly clear”

Kant could ignore churches, houses, walls,

cobblestones he saw each day

to concentrate on the structures in his mind 

now, the wind flails the branches a little more madly,

an American says “we are the federal law,” 

earnest white people insist they can help;

my colleagues speak of “flying under the radar”

like supersonic missiles flying underneath the pole—

o to be merely interested,

having seen birds, fluorescent green and orange, iridescent

aquamarine, emphatic red and black, metallic

fire-fangled feathers actually dangling

when one wakes up in the morning, one plans on living forever

but your shabby principles are catching up with you,

everything so tenuously plotted, as though one slight touch—

honk if you love or hate

the nice young man who promises

to “walk you through the process”

“turn the TV up a bit louder to protect the children”

constant low roar from the trafficway miles away

or roar and thud of helicopter engine blades

I don’t know how to talk about tyranny, but

I do know how to check for rain, where

the puddles show the widening circles,

crumbling concrete stairs, permanent yellow tape at school:

if you’re still here you’ve opted in; but if you want to opt out,

you’ll have to stand in line

*

I envision twenty people here,

busily trying to write to keep

the country afloat as a giant

artificial finger writes

on the walls. Continental

flag, heat dome clampdown already.

How to appreciate chaos. A touch of

the sun does wonders—

you could make a long leaky-bucket list:

things you’re never going to do

to save the world: best to just get on

with it. Catbrid fancies himself in charge

of the west half of the back yard and

maybe he is. Sentence fragments

obviate the necessity of moral choice

when plastic problems make

all the difference in the world.

Who knows what will be edible

when I re-read this. Better to write

on clay. If interesting were all it was.

I could answer the question “How

do you feel about being asked?”

An honor to be here. An honor to be.

People get used to apocalypse

gradually. No end punctuation creates

the illusion of no finality. Full stop.

Pupae open knowing what to do,

we the observers do not:

Liberation exists only in the vacuum

of outer space and Cain was the first

liar: “If the other people die, there’s more

stuff for you!” But people in wildfires

know why hell is painted red.

A panic of doves explodes,

a train whistle reminds me to stop thinking.

I saw the moon at its farthest point north,

but I can’t find the handle of anything.

One day, I’ll have firm ground, will contemplate

nature and do good. How complicated

could it be? Juncos found the millet on snow . . .

Punctuation, a form of dying: black radish

dug up and eaten raw with raw shaking hands;

risks cascade despite a chance at living

to the maybe next rain? Fragments are a way

to avoid the verb “to be.” Glasses fog

like milk of amnesia. These squirrels,

so ugly and plain, might evolve

into humans while we watch.