Endeavour - The Offing

My mother studied to be an astronaut in another country, laughs now at how far her life is from rockets. The first years in Huntsville, she drove hours across the state border with my father to buy soy sauce. Like deer, they followed salt away from rocket city. I imagine the universe where my mother jokes with mission control – 先蹦一蹦,在看! Her words naturally contain the moon (月), the object of her gaze (目). The words we use have what we need within them. In orbit, the astronauts named their rocket Endeavour. My mother asked for what she wanted in her passwords, the typed stars recording without revealing her desires. When the rocket’s four parachutes finally filled, we began to breathe again. We begin with the end but do not end there. Once the rocket contacted water, the filled bells unfurled like some god’s dropped napkin. ************** = godblessmeaboy What isn’t inevitable: how we cheer when they return to earth. How deer return to the same salted woods. How prayer can be the size o

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• Grace Zhang