luanne castle
Mars Codex
The landing was bumpy, but it didn’t bother the AI
in charge of the codex, whose job it was to bury
the capsule sheathing the text
in the red rocks of the dry lake bed.
Someone had the idea to send poems
as a sample of our human culture--
she got a committee to sign off
and then when it became a viral story
everyone laughed and someone got angry.
That’s how she ended up resigning her position.
The AI did just what it was meant to do
flying back to earth to report on the burial.
In the meantime, the poems got along
inside the book as if they were written together
each one teaching something to the others.
The capsule was discovered by aliens to the planet
but not earthlings. Possibly from another universe.
Turns out they could read any language,
as long as it was poetry. They assumed we could, too.
The Freeze
My first memory of a poem was when a sunbeam angled just so.
A silver sword sliced away the afternoon, leaving a haze over the lake.
The poems might have begun in my mother’s womb, but the way
the sun came between me and the water will always seem an introduction.
I sat on the shore in my life jacket and carved out of the sand a buried lake.
The glint of the silver blade drew my attention up and the world was new.
They visited me often from then on. The complicated ant living
its complicated life hidden from me by dandelions and flowering clover.
The furry brown caterpillar, with its magician’s tricks, performing for us kids.
The day I lay on my back and watched the flick book of clouds changing.
I never thought of trapping the poems, little fish, holding them captive.
I didn’t know all would ice over and I would need them again.
Just Words
I’m sorry for not apologizing.
I was swimming in the fog
and had to abandon the car
to the bear swigging mouthwash.
I’m sorry for no sorry.
I almost provided a small one
but my allergy to childhood
caused my tongue to swell
out of my Beetlejuice jaws.
I sense danger from the smells
of cut grass and cherry popsicle.
I avoid those and many more.
I am not the spring bearer
or the winter’s chilling breath.
I am the bronze statue in the park
sporting a soggy Santa cap
marching in a ghost regiment
to your shaken reindeer bells.
I am populating your new estate
with lit doll heads, with fish
hooks and razor blades
building a library with my tears.
I’m sorry I’m not sorry.
Luanne Castle's Kin Types (Finishing Line Press), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Award. Her first collection of poetry, Doll God, winner of the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, was published by Aldrich Press. Luanne has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside (PhD); Western Michigan University (MFA); and Stanford University. Her Pushcart and Best of the Net-nominated poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, American Journal of Poetry, Pleiades, River Teeth, TAB, Verse Daily, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Broad Street, and other journals. An avid blogger, she can be found at luannecastle.com. She divides her time between California and Arizona, where she shares land with an intrepid bobcat.