Michael Cooper
Michael Cooper is an Inland Empire poet, social worker, and father of two great sons: Markus & Jonathan. You can find his work in The Berkeley Review, The Portland Review, The LA Review, H_NGM_N among other fine publications.
Divertissement i.
Without a parachute the first pilot had no choice but to stay and burn
in the experimental aircraft as it fell
from the sky
the pilot after them was cut in two
by the tailfin passing thru his and his body then the next
pilot split their legs off at the knees that flared outward as they
egressed—a bloom thrown inside out into unfriendly
sky—the jaw of the smoking fuselage still gripping
khaki scrap of her upper thigh in its final descent
each new counter
measure evaluated for what would survive what best and most
often—mad terror of parenting someone—pushed unexpected
out into the fall
cold from the fire vomiting
fractured house—its bone and wood truss super
structure heated by the fuel of itself—what it carried
on to sustain our flight
but in our mind, because we yet live:
it was always someone else’s fractured leg
someone else’s broken back, or the unlucky one—whose
cleaving canopy failed to jettison itself,
whose body stains the shattering glass
as they are thrust through it
then out into the slip-stream slips
the drunken drogue chute that
like a wedding dress
posing with its train in the surf for photos drinks
its fill of the ocean—drags its bride out
into the rip-tide
and down.
Divertissement ii.
Every single home is strapped to the top
of an ICBM—ready to go
like our first manned missions into space
once lift off begins you are committed
to the family in the way
the branch that reaches for Luna’s face—still
feels its roots not far
from the origins of its birth—the seedling
I see my son reflected in the surface
of a pane of safety
glass wrapped around the Gemini reentry
vehicle display—a burned whorl pattern in its heat
shield matching the copper coil of his hair
and the shock of his half smile—barely visible
in the half-life florescent
museum the sum
of all these shallow
orbits—of our days—the glory
of cold cereal in the morning
eaten alone or
his stern-brave face at the mirror
brushing his teeth and confronting
each day through the subway tunnel
of school
unrequited as we are
folded into the preceding generations
of each other—the cars rock-shuttle
shove into each other the fear that the low
slung bully rising up from the scattering
ballast
is more real than the boogeyman growing within us
that tells you—be prepared
bide your time
they will come.
Divertissement iv.
Looking into the Gemini
space capsule—you wonder who will you find to love
you—the shortest way to travel between two points is to find your
singularity—luckily I have the gift of going nowhere
fast—if each of us is nested inside the other
if we are the womb of: root and branch and safety
glass altimeter
artificial horizon
attitude indicator
if we are zero
altitude zero air speed ejection seats then
what courage it takes to stay shot into space
or left behind
here on the ground—what love to learn
to disarm our frontal lobes so that when the enemy
escapes us—we find ourselves alone—lost as sons and daughters
we can pull our ejection seats coiled
black and yellow d-ring rigged overhead to escape from
the cabin
fire
Pull down the protective oxygen mask at last mother
father
your hose
trailing life into the hard vacuum of your hospital beds as the explosive
bolts let lose
jettison us into some new free
space—we learn to hug ourselves—each other
parachutes
nested in our branches
our roots—womb-of-all-one-being.