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EARTH RISING
From an asteroid in empty space
An image of the earth rising
Would compel watchfulness:
And the glory of
The earth could be known
By its continents
Unless the oceans became colorless
Because the sky had disappeared.
No more sky, it is theorized,
Means no more earth.
To verify, the Kepler team
Has asked the NASA group
For an analysis, and the Director
of the Astrophysics
Subcommittee of the
NASA Advisory Council's
13 member group has promised
To undertake the study
But has cautioned against
"False Positives" as to
the asteroids that
Hold the pale sky together,
And keep the earth
In place.
ONLOOKER
She is, he estimates, thirty-five or forty.
She must have been married once,
or maybe twice.
Her past is, at this point,
none of his business.
She walks
on the sunny side of the street,
she wears a suit,
probably a little perfume.
She looks in the store windows:
jewels,
suits,
dresses, hats,
antiques,
gloves,
shoes,
embroideries,
paintings,
everything that is for sale
charms her,
charms him.
She enters a building, the doorman nods,
The elevator ascends smoothly to his desire.
Dick Bentley is a graduate of Yale and the Vermont College Writing Program .
His recent book of poems and short stories, Post-Freudian Dreaming and A General Theory
of Desire are available from amazon.com. He was a winner of the Paris Review/Paris Writers
Workshop International Fiction Award in 1994. He can be contacted at
or www.dickbenley.com. for comments, suggestions, advice or for no reason at all. He teaches at Holyoke Community College.
Email: Dick Bentley
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