First Steps

Babysitting my granddaughter.
Wednesday. Three o’clock.  I'm on the couch,
back of my head on the arm,

my feet point upward at the end.
My granddaughter stands at the couch near my head.

She takes three steps toward the toy box,
falls on her butt and gets up without a glance back.
She does this again and, at the toy box,

picks out a plastic giraffe to chew on.  I fall
into a trance. It's 1969 and I'm watching TV
with the planet.

A foot, then another, procedes from the capsule.
A bloated suit floats onto the barren crater.

A small step creates a new footprint on the dusty ground.
He sees the earth (a fragile ornament) hanging by a thread
from the hemline of black space.

Radio waves crash and crackle behind the mask.
Electric filaments leap and flash back to Houston.
The men in black-framed glasses clap,

and wake me as my granddaughter toddles back
and touches my nose. I smell her diaper.
Do my duty.

I finish dropping the diaper into the bin,
it strikes me how nebuli come near,
then, with a flash, pass again.