crash and burn
dad and i on our backs on a still-warm picnic table.
a star crept across a july night in 1962 while crickets
creaked and frogs harrumphed near our house.
i imitated the way he put his hands behind his head,
swiveled to follow the star. he nodded in its direction.
it’s a sputnik, a russian spy satellite. i nodded in awe.
of course he knew, he and mom escaped from soviets
in hungary after the war. i sat up, nervous. dad?
don’t worry, it’s too dark for them to see us now.
sputnik slid out of sight, but for months i gazed skyward.
this wasn’t science fiction. evidence materialized.
sputnik crashed back to earth in wisconsin later that year.
anything could yet happen, before those not-too-far-off years
of his heavy drinking, bankruptcy, totaling vehicles and lives,
landing in jail. before all that, when we still believed in dreams.
Marilyn Baszczynski, originally from Ontario, Canada, lives and writes in Iowa. Her book, Gyuri. Poem of wartime Hungary, was published in 2015. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including backchannels, Conestoga Zen, Gyroscope, KYSOFlash, and Slippery Elm, among others. Marilyn edits Iowa Poetry Association’s annual anthology, Lyrical Iowa.