On Star Trek,
when they beamed
people back
up, there was
a blue mist all around the
beam-up-ees
and the part over
their hearts always
went last.
In junior high I wondered if,
during the testing
of the beam-thing,
someone’s heart
got left behind
some time, on some
soundstage
planet, or if hearts
were just too stiff
to beam up clean.
In the yard we had
back then,
the ivy covered up
the walls,
and cried like waves
during big storms
and got so dark at night
that it disappeared.
I think that
all the fears I have
come from that yard,
from the undersides
of ivy, with its hard white
veins
like dogs’ ears
inside out.
But watching Star Trek
after dinner,
with my hair back
in a braid
and my wants diffuse as stars,
all I’d see
through the back window
was my face
in everything.
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco co-edits One Sentence Poems and works as a librarian. Her chapbooks, Lion Hunt and Various Lies, are available from Plan B Press and Finishing Line Press respectively.
Eunoia Review 