For Pappou

The day Sputnik rose into the sky you heard it
beeping on the radio; it was the first time
you looked past the horizon for anything

that wasn’t holy. Did you wonder, then,
if it was wrong to reach upward? No longer
content as the image of god, they reached

into space and hoped it would crack open. All you
could do was watch everything change until
there were thousands of them, zipping on their orbits,

terrible at letting go.

I read you today’s paperthere’s a storm on its way
but you’ll never feel the rain again. Are you afraid
of floating off the hospital bed, of burning

up from the sun, of colliding
with a satellite? You’re the one who
always had the answers, a century of them,

but this time I don’t ask. Instead, I lean forward
in the old rocking chair, feet planted firmly
so that it will stay in place, and listen to your breath.