how, if things went bad, if there
was a moon disaster and the
astronauts couldn’t come back,
they’d call the widows-to-be
before reading the statement to
the nation. Then NASA would
cut off communication with
the stranded astronauts, and
the clergyman would adopt
the same procedure as a
burial at sea. I think of you,
baby, telling me how you
pulled the plug on your phone
talking to a woman who
thought she was yours, a
warning I should have listened
to before I was in a cold place,
like where those astronauts might
have been, with no hope left
of getting back to where I’d
started, stuck, abandoned, with-
out anything like those suicide
capsules someone says they
carried with them. When
you said you’d call
back and didn’t, I could have
been getting that phone call,
not so different from the one
I got months later cutting all
connection: “It’s not you,
it’s me.” And then, “It’s over.”