poems by rachel kellum
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How to Handle a Narcissist from Space
Respond to his self-serving praise with a thumbs up.
Say nothing.
Twiddle your thumbs.
Fiddle with the floating mic with your friends:
Stand it up, lay it down, watch it drift, spin it like a drill.
Clap and laugh like kids at these antics while he waits.
Use comm delay to your innocent advantage.
Let him sit in silence a full minute.
Pretend to wonder if you lost contact.
Ask if ground is still on the line.
I am, yes, I am, says the narcissist.
Listen to the crowd laugh on your beautiful planet.
Do not apologize.
See 8:30-10:00 of Trump calls Artemis II astronauts after historic moon flyby: 'We'll plant our flag again'
Christina Hammock Koch, Mission Specialist, Artemis II
Her bare face framed
in a floating halo
of untamed hair
she adjusts her socks
plays with and parts
a shoulder curl, nods
and smiles, like I do
patient, while men talk
about stars, turning
toward black space
lights out, to see them
not twinkling (she shakes
her head, mouths no)
just perfect pinpricks
of light, he says.
Someone, please
pass her the mic.
See Do You Still See Stars In Outer Space? Kid Asks Astronauts Aboard Artemis II
with Yeats
What if every two thousand and odd years something happens in the world to make one sacred, the other secular; one wise, the other foolish; one fair, the other foul; one divine, the other devilish? What if there is an arithmetic or geometry that can exactly measure the slope of the balance, the dip of the scale, and so date the coming of that something? W.B Yeats, A Vision
It didn’t take long for the magpies to come back.
They are not falcons. I call them in with seedy fat.
We live on the widening gyre of justice now,
just outside the narrowing corkscrew tongue of raw power
shrinking like an old god’s cock after 2,000 years,
his self-made cage rattled with raging whimpered tears.
see W. B. Yeats and the Cycles of History for a discussion of the gyre of his famous poem, “The Second Coming.”
dancing while he cooks
two beers
and our wedding
playlist
remind me
of the way hips
butter time
The Beauty Years
In the years of my beauty
like you, I was too thin
waking with shaking arms
sugar starved blood.
A milk jug was too much
for my hand
aching with the effort
of doorknobs, keys, pens.
Early arthritis, I guessed
remembering my mother’s
bent knuckles. It wasn’t.
I was simply starved
but for the gaze of men
trained to like us thin
and weak as little girls.
What a gift are my fifties—
this body filling in, juicy
sweet as a newly wrinkled plum
becoming pink wine
softening my husband’s belly
sip by sip, drunk on me
drunk on him.
Dementia in the Digital Age
From the nicest room in the home
with three large closets and the only private bathroom
she likes to report as an inventory of blessings
every time we talk— and two twin beds
with a space between where she and her husband
reach across to finger-kiss goodnight,
Mom sends photos I already sent her of my last visit,
all day, in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate, no words.
No responses to my questions or comments.
No hearts or smiles or praying hands.
But sometimes, I love you, all caps.
And photos of her decades ago in 1980s prime, one
in a black and red tailored suit dress and 3-inch heels
flanked by fat, balding bosses who flaunted her
like the jewel she was to lure business. Sent twice.
And another, only once, of her white-haired mother
at her side, grandma’s Colorado mountains behind,
Mom’s tiny waist cinched with a belt around
a fitted blue-jean jumpsuit. And this one, thrice:
she and her oldest daughter together,
gorgeous, smiling, always mistaken as sisters.
And this one, at least four times a week:
her mother tucked against her scowling father,
cigarette aloft behind his youngest daughter,
leaning against a white picket fence
with their five grown kids, middle-aged
Mom in black and red stripes as far away
from him as possible. Or five times, this:
sitting around a Cracker Barrel table
maybe ten years ago, her hair still dark and thick,
still donning snug fitting animal print,
with three sisters, their racist husbands
and remaining veteran brother
whom she lovingly reminded of her name
and later recounted the way his wife
rolled her eyes and scolded,
“You’ve already told that story, Wayne!”
And minutes after, this one, four times:
a cropped close-up of her at that same table,
blurry, pixelated, head held proud.
And yesterday, this one, three times:
Mom’s right arm reaching around her oldest,
now-estranged son with two kids on his knee
and her left around her youngest girl—
long curled, who died five years after that,
her hand on my shoulder—and my older sister
and I, on the floor before her with our daughters
in our laps. Mom’s smile huge, satin blouse signature red.
Her house, a nest she bought herself. Behind us,
in a vase she had carefully arranged, burgundy
silk flowers bloomed on long, plastic stems.
Perhaps it was Christmas. Perhaps it always is.
napping in the digital age
tenderly, my thumb
rubs my index fingertip
dream-scrolling dark screens
Easter Art Class
I started the day singing
with children I love
placed palettes of paint
paper and brushes
at every seat
to help them celebrate spring
and laughed with them
at their muscled bunnies
sang about their purple rain
pointed out the beauty
of their blue-black storms
and even the red
dripping from the upper edge
of the page
of a fifth-grade girl
old enough
to know how soon
the newly born
face danger.
I hung her work
in the hallway
where it took
its rightful place
among
festive eggs
and pink tulips.