Stanikos Jordan
Cosmonaut

Sigh over this, muses.
Sigh over the boy adrift,
The boy who flies.

The long, wasted breath he has held
For a childhood
Is sour and overfills him.

Bound and tertiary,
You muses have crafted a cosmonaut,
A child sped out of orbit.

No tepid bodies or minds may touch him;
He is a revenant to the stars,
To his blinking, lingering bloodline.

They sing to him
Through the disinterested blues of his illusive mother;
Their lullabies tell him secrets.

They sing of him most of all,
Most of all they love him, for
He, he is their pensive and god.

With wings clipped at birth,
With eyes drawn above,
Do not be surprised, muses,

That the boy you thought was your own
Is a treader of the great mirror
Of the seas;

For on the mirror’s top,
At night,
It is there that his family hugs him tight.

Do not be surprised, muses,
That your child dreams of falling,
Falling

Into seawater.

_ _

Stanikos Jordan is a student at the Robert Donald Clark Honors College in Eugene, Oregon. He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.

>> Back to Issue 20, 2017