Weekly Poem: ‘Disrupted Motion’

Disrupted Motion
By Karena Youtz

Disrupted motion of three heavenly bodies
In slow soft eclipse
a shadow sphere overtook a pale green disk
My son crawls into my bed with a dream of earth
quickly gulped by a black hole
“Were you on the earth?”
“Yes.” “How scary.”
Could not comfort that or this. Just go back alone, but not tonight.
Predatory cougars among joggers
feel safer than overwhelming
glacier melt A nest is being threshed,
our private shared dropping sleep
Wolves, bear, deer and planets
die through us Will the desert
and forest shift into dreams life become
random barely remembered unsayably important
Only once I wished I lived
someplace more stable than earth

Karena Youtz is a poet who lives and writes in Boise, Idaho. She also writes lyrics for her husband Doug Martsch, lead singer for the Boise-based indie rock band Built to Spill. Last year, her collection of poems, “The Shape Is Space,” was published by Privity Press. Early next year, a collection called “Transfer Tree” will be published 1913 Press.