The Lunar Probe
The Lunar Probe
Long before morning they waked me to say
the moon was undone; had blown out, sky high,
swelled fat as a fat pig's bladder, fit
to burst, and then the underside had split.
I had been dreaming this dream seven nights
before it bore fruit (there is nothing so sweet
to a prophet as forethought come true). They had meant
merely to prick when...good-bye, good intent!
Dozing, I saw the sea stopper its flux,
dogs freeze in mid-howl, women wind up their clocks,
lunatics everywhere sane as their keepers.
I have not dreamed since in this nation of sleepers.
—Maxine Kumin, 1961
Excerpted from Halfway, with permission of the author and the Anderson Literary Agency Inc. All rights reserved.
Home page image: "Wegbereiter Ikarus," print, woodblock on paper, by Wilhelm Geissler, 1966. (Courtesy NASM)