SATELLITES
They say we’re fifty rows of teeth opening
up or cruising by. To others, we’re the thing
with feathers. I think of marshmallows
bigger than ostrich eggs, covered and warmed
by torsos, the image whetting my appetite.
I feel you, like a cracked egg, slipping
through my fingers. You are Earth to me,
meaning this orbit a hundred miles high
is the closest I’ll get. I might fling off
any second. Show me a hurricane,
zap me some red lightning. Don’t worry:
I’m not a warbler disoriented by lights.
What I worry about are my pillows.
Will they still be there when I wake?
Or will I be coughing up feathers? Caws
and song surround us. I dig your gravitas—
bright, gelatinous, electric.
THE OLDEST POEM ON EARTH
We all dislike it. Everything team-related is
in play. Nicky takes us out for beers. Mariam
picks up the tab. In the morning I get in two
hours early to debug the new game our team’s
developing. Jeffrey brings in breakfast burritos
and pop for our team. Liu runs out to get a salad
for vegan Kat. Sheila tells us about a veep role
opening up with a fat raise. I nominate Nicky,
who wins the job and marries Mariam. Kat
and Liu marry too. When Nicky’s promoted
to executive veep, he hires me as his assistant.
We rise in tandem. When he retires, I throw
Nicky and Mariam a banquet. The company
promotes Kat to replace Nicky—and Liu, me.
Kenton K. Yee’s recent poems appear (or will soon) in Plume Poetry, Kenyon Review, Threepenny Review, RHINO, Cincinnati Review, Quarterly West, Sheila-Na-Gig, Cortland Review, Fairy Tale Review, The Ecopoetry Anthology: Volume II, and Rattle, among others. A PhD from UCLA, he taught at Columbia University and writes from Northern California.