The Apollo astronauts, from what I understand,
were country music lovers.
These were guys from Texas, and they
would bring records, like Bob Wills and the Texas
Playboys on board, like the Apollo 12 spacecraft.
And there's this really interesting, fascinating tension
and incongruity to that that I love.
And this is a poem called The Country Music
Lovers of the Spaceship, that kind of celebrates
the incongruities and and tension
of being a person in a world of other people.
The Country Music Lovers of the Spaceship.
Your employment is terminated as of today,
as is your medical insurance.
You have the option of continuing
your coverage under the COBRA Act, I could hear myself recite.
He signed and peeled out of our office park,
colliding moments later, half a mile down the road,
full speed into a median, then another car.
I could hear it.
Then he was on life support and then they took him off of it.
I would recognize that slurred cumbia bassline, drinking
liquor in the post office parking lot
on Christmas Eve at closing, I would recognize it underwater.
I don't understand a word.
The country music lovers of the spaceship
mowed down revelers jammed up on the crosswalks.
And the perseverance of their weekend news
is my faith, any showered bible college smile.
My [? trepan ?] are siloed and dead bolted down
little scenarios.
Their cloud drift maps screens, dreamful 2-step undoes
thunderbird-like claw grips on myself.
In one such sigh, I thought I'd make
it seem I get a kick at living next to you is all it ever was.
[APPLAUSE]