Levi Wagenmaker

 Poetry

1.

'in anticipation'


in anticipation of the launch into space
of satellite Herschel (a space telescope)
a scientist involved in its design and construction
was interviewed  and mentioned that some
cosmologists conjecture that the universe
may in time collapse or on the contrary
expand forever or even decay into a wholly
different kettle of fish or cup of tea or universe
filling a niche in an endless variety of alternatives
as part of the multiverse posited by certain
string theorists and no those are not learned persons
who spend much of their time pondering minimalists'
underwear accentuating mirror-images of fatty tissue
cushioning muscle known as gluteus maximus
not skin and bones but shapely enough considering
what privately emerges from between them
such strings when I was younger were not anticipated
even by the hopeful and would if suggested have been
considered to belong to the realms of science fiction
(a genre by the way in French known as
anticipation)

2.

'ufologists'

those who identify Unidentified Flying Objects
as extraterrestrial spacecraft do tend
to take the thrill out of unidentified flying objects
for what cannot be at first sight or scent or touch
be identified must be (dogs will agree) more thrilling
than what must soon deserve contempt in terms
of over-familiarity and the ennui of déjà vu

it may be worse for those inside extraterrestrial spacecraft
said to be monitoring our planet Earth with its trees cars
animals people buildings and works of art all equally alien
to beholders who should they be given to exclamations
might well exclaim 'They all look the f*cking same to me
let's get the hell outa here'

they might even have a term like UFO
(uninteresting f*cking objects)

(their pronunciation of asterisks might be intriguing)