New poems from Garth Upshaw
Before Time
A number of years ago, I drove over the pass on an Oregon logging road:
My brother, my son, my girlfriend, and me.
Cutting through shards of razor-blue sky until
We escaped the fir and pine, and
Threw a foam mattress
On the breathless spreading desert floor.
We snuggled under scratchy wool blankets
In a shoulder-tight row:
Banks, Chris, Kat, and me.
The wild delight of the riddled sky sparked like glory.
There are moments we keep in our thoughts
Unsullied by what was or what will be.
Did you know, said nine-year-old Chris,
That some of these galaxies
Are moving away from us so fast
That even if we could travel
At the speed of light, and left last Tuesday,
We would never catch them?
The August Perseids incinerated themselves
Soundlessly in the vast inky black
While Kat held my hand, and
The warm whiskey sank into my cells.
A smile squeezed my cheeks.
Did you know?
Chris owns an extraordinary number of facts
But he doesn’t talk to other kids
Or know how to put on a coat
Or why we say hello and goodbye and how-are-you-today
At all.
My brother talks with Chris about supernovas
They laugh about Betelgeuse, and
How, when the scientists wanted to calibrate the Hubble
They peered at an empty patch of sky, and
Found a treasure chest of jeweled galaxies
Where nothing had ever been before.
Did you know, Chris says, that there is no now?
There is only what went before and what will come after?
Try to catch-catch-catch the moment.
Whoops, it slips through your fingers
Again.
He laughs and I laugh and we all laugh.
Kat gets up to pee, and reminds us
To turn our shoes out
In case of scorpions.
I Can See the Stars
Some mornings, I turn my thin frame sideways and
Slip through the cracks in the facade.
The latest broken record paints the sweltering sky burnt-tree orange, and
The children call from the yard:
Want want want
Need need need.
I swim to them, breath burning in my chest, but
They flap downtown to spend the night at the office.
You stare over my shoulder from your
Ice castle a thousand miles north,
Curled in the tundra.
The sign on your door says:
Sorry we missed your call.
We know your time is valuable.
The overdue bills wail from the cubby, and
Foul the air with their stench.
My mother, not a marble in sight, stumps
From the bedroom. Whoop de doo, she says, again.
I tell her: Whoop de doo. I can’t stay.
Though some nights,
If I’m quiet enough,
I can see the stars.
Salve
Yesterday, my nine-year-old neighbor
With a sharp sparkle in his eye
Face shining with the future
Brought me an early birthday present
Wrapped in gold ribbon
With a card:
A luscious yellow stick of salted butter
I laughed, and
We went outside in the drizzle
To wrangle the chickens
When Kat got home
She tipped her head sideways and smiled
What is this?
When I explained, she laughed, and
For a single luminous moment I forgot
That the world is on fire.
Garth Upshaw lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, three children, and six enthusiastic chickens. His work has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Realms of Fantasy, and other fine venues. He has an MA in Theoretical Mathematics and loves carving spoons, bicycling, and curling up with a good book.
