by Elise Rothenhoefer
Second Contact and Fadeout
- Contact
When the astronauts landed they found the city they’d seen from orbit
To be just like where they’d come from
And when they walked masked and oxygenated out from the borderlands and through the alleyways and boulevards, thumbing rides with awkward, fat, gloved hands on the highway’s edge
Nobody paid them any attention, just bumped into them on the sidewalks and told them to stop loitering
They took off their helmets and found the same smoggy air they’d flown so far away from
Most of them eventually found wives, husbands, jobs, houses, and just nearly forgot the spaceship they’d parked far off in the forest, mouldering and grown over with trees and moss
They felt the shape and curve of their contact like licking a battery and accepted it like gravity having pushed them out and pulled them towards
Only one astronaut couldn’t forget,
Couldn’t accept going from heavy to weightlessness to heavy again
He stands on the corner of 14th and Central, holding out his helmet like a pail and asking for spare change, still dressed in the staining white, diaperlike fabric that makes him sweat so much in the summer
There are things you forgot and there are things you can’t forget
And there are things you almost remember
Any astronaut,
Any traveler
Will tell you
It’s like a magic trick,
Like a coin that reappears behind the ear of a child
Who, after they realize how it’s done
Will spend years trying to get back
To the moment between
When the silver dollar vanished
When they didn’t know, and when they did
2. Fade
If you asked him, he’d tell you that he came from another world just like this one
He’d tell you that if you wanted proof
To go eastwards into the wilderness
And that the ship
Was a haunted house
And so was the city
And so was the new planet
And the old planet too
I however,
Will tell you
To think of it in terms of architecture
To think of architecture as making a space for the ghosts
You fly towards the dark aperture, a moth in reverse
It’s a new moon
You might make a wish?
In some cultures they do that
They wish
For the artificial,
Pitch black clarity
Of the planetarium
The lightshow’s about to start
Sit right back
We’ll tell you
The names of the constellations
Each hero’s shape
Their tombs and their deeds
Spears and swords pointing like compass needles,
Like exhaust trails
Who would follow?
These unidentified flying animals
Someone already has
How did you think?
The house you lived in was built?
It was built from their bones
Someone chased and hunted
Footprints, spoor, stag and forest
Blood from a wound that didn’t heal
Points of fire spread out, across the sky
Nate Maxson is a writer and performance artist. The author of several collections of poetry, he lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Elise Rothenhoefer is a visual artist, animal lover, and justice advocate. She manages a graphic design business, Magic Bean Designs. Elise lives in the wilds of Southern Florida with her husband, 3 children, 4 cats, 2 dogs, 3 hermit crabs, 1 pig and 1 tortoise.