Sea of Tranquility

by Bryan Dietrich

It happened                 Or not.
in space,                      Or not.
in orbit,                       Or back lot.
among dust,                 Perhaps not.
among rocks,               Papier-mâché.
using craft,                  Craft? okay.
having left                   Good sense,
Earth’s berth               all pretense,
to find purpose,          all ruse.
to be more,                  Don’t confuse.
and we planted            Nothing, nyet,
flag, footprint              horseshit.
on a world                   Made of cheese?
not our own.               Oh, please.
But there’s pictures.   What? Of Yeti?
There’s rocks.             There’s confetti.
There’s tape.               Not today.
Well, it’s lost.             You don’t say.
But the images…        Are fake,
the audio,                    a mistake.
the science,                  Says we couldn’t,
the story,                    says we shouldn’t.
the import.                  Minimal.
Humanity…                Animal.
Faith.                           Now you’re talking.
Our reach.                   Knucklewalking.
We made it                  Yes, up.
up and out.                  No, doubt.

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Bryan Dietrich is the author of six books of poems and co-editor of a recent poetry anthology.  He has published poems in The New Yorker, The Nation, Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Paris Review, Harvard Review, Yale Review, and many other journals.  H has won The Paris Review Prize, a “Discovery”/The Nation Award, a Writers at Work Fellowship, and others. 

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