Shrapnel drifts like maple syrup    torpid

in a black pond    as Tom Hanks declares

a problem     an eight-year-old boy in Ohio

cannot understand except for the image

of ship shards    floating in a vacuum      where the astronaut’s

wife’s wedding ring cannot echo     its clink & decrescendo

as it falls to the shower drain    where her sob

for her husband    suspended in a sphere of rent metal

cannot reach its intended ears    The boy slurps

his chai as he watches the screen in the kitchen

His shoulders sink for the astronaut’s wife     who the boy imagines

could be his Mom     who cannot reach     where her love tumbles

This is how space becomes more     than night sky blue

dappled through branches & skylights

more than a vessel for the moon

the stars     & the boy who eats pancakes under them

This is how space reminds the boy that he lives two places

at once      why later at karate class     anxiety sidekicks his ribs

renders him airless     when he cannot do the splits