in parentheses

Cat Dixon is the author of What Happens in Nebraska (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022) along with six other poetry chapbooks and collections. She is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review. Recent poems published in The Book of Matches, North of Oxford, hex, and The Southern Quill.

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Utopia rising

Burned into my retina, the horizon burns
uniform—red, red, red. Scorched earth
realized, we fled here to mourn. A great
influx of inhabitants, with cracked and
open sores flapping like flags, to greet the land.

Planet-shopping

Age of the place doesn’t matter to you.
It’s a question of beauty. We toured
green, tan, and red valleys and peaks with
eclipses and alien auroras. You fear and crave
storms the size of a continent and craters of
ice erupting with gas and dust. Our fingers
numb in our suits, we board the ship to
compare one-sheets—this one has the softest
light. This one has 27 moons, 13 lovely rings,
and the promise that comes with a fixer-upper.
Is this the one? The realtor asks. You smirk. I’m
ready to say yes, just to end the search.

Gravity

Everyone’s pinned like pink, yellow, and blue butterflies
on a display board in a classroom—trapped like
rats in an endless maze constructed in a lab—as if
giants held down our limbs, and suction-cupped us to the
earth. Everyone’s grounded seeking flight as if wings
torn from our shoulders will reappear any moment. As
the magnetic pull of the stars strengths, we weaken until
evaporation—each wisp disappears into its own cloud.

Maybe it was earth all along

Reconnaissance reveals the population plots
shenanigans to ease its grim fate. Obtuse leaders
throw rolls of towels and ticker-tape parades
escorted by the stars of the red carpet. The crowd
applauds but plants bombs. They bloom duds. The
convertibles don’t slow down; instead, they
hop the curb, tanking the ones too dull—speed
bumps. The spies radio back to headquarters:
over. The first part, the meat, of their message lost
to the static of confetti, to the tiny flags waving.

Live with me

Job posting: Must be unafraid of planned
obsolescence, heights, break-neck speed,
stars, and debris. Requirements: no
earthly attachments, no obsession with
ghoulish tales of those who have been lost:
untethered, left to spin for seven hours,
emergency jetpack’s fuel gone, the sun
rising and setting, the straw supplying the
remaining water the only solace. Must be
easygoing, no kicking or flailing. The
rip of bone from socket and the melting
of the helmet and suit is reward enough.

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