for Jim Lovell
He learned the language of engines
and air, spoke it fluently over carrier decks
and water, only to be told, not
yet. Too much weight in the blood,
a different sort of countdown.
When the door did open, long haul
in low orbit, he docked and undocked
in a cosmic rehearsal. Slip the leash,
circle the crescent, a lunar Christmas Eve,
reading Genesis to the whole turning world.
A bang in the dark, oxygen hissing away
into nothing, the wrong switches flicked
years before. A ship hung thousands of miles
out. Back on a loop, navigating by Rigel,
by Sirius, by nerve. And then home
to ticker tape, medals, a restaurant
with his name above the door:
the kind of fame you don’t spend
but keep in a drawer.
Ninety-seven years on the clock,
four times in space, twice to the Moon,
and still the only man to go there
twice and not walk on it.
You could say he missed his step
or you could say he left his footprints
somewhere we haven’t found them yet.
–
Luigi Coppola—poetry, music, rum & coke—Glastonbury Festival feature, Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective, Poetry Archive Worldview winner, Bridport shortlist, Ledbury & National longlist, debut from Broken Sleep Books.