who catches the astronauts?

the flowers have no business being the color that they are

neither do your eyes

she had thick glasses when she was a kid
in the 80's
and a perm
and turned five on the day
that the challenger exploded
("the challenger did not explode," she told me. "the machine was torn apart, and the white billowing clouds were a result of escaping liquid oxygen and hydrogen." she is always telling me things like this, which makes her an excellent editor.)
she sleeps naked
even when it is very, very cold
but takes showers so hot
that i can never join her
when she opens the bathroom door
the steam pours out
and i imagine
the challenger exploding
(apologies to the editor)
and i would swim out into the atlantic
and catch her as she fell
my thick eye-glassed
curly-haired
astronaut-

but when she steps from the bath
wearing a towel, just a towel
i remember
that it is not 1986
that we are not five
and that she is in no need of being saved

editor's note: some television documentaries covering the challenger disaster actually added the sound effect of an explosion to the footage.

who needs an imagination
when you have a television?