Mercury, Venus, the hottest ones first, then Earth, Mars,
the planets’ names slipping from my lips.
those nights in our cramped kitchen,
while my father lit another Camel,
and my mother wiped down the Formica,
Jupiter the largest, Saturn with its rings,
Uranus, a gaseous planet, I whispered,
one of the bright stars in Sister Evelyn’s
third-grade class, ending with Pluto, the farthest.
Soon I would learn the constellations,
the names of their star patterns,
and I would collect nickels for all those facts
which come spilling out
on this April morning—forsythia in full bloom,
birds crowding at the feeder, and my wife off to work,
leaving me alone with my third cup, thinking about
turning the garden, maybe starting the mower or
sharpening its blades, Virgo and Ursa Major,
Libra and Centaurus rattling out as I look at three
yards of mulch that need to be spread, remembering
the nine planets have been reduced to eight,
remembering my father raising his glass
of gold beer, saluting me, exhaling blue rings
that bumped against the plaster ceiling
and passed through its pores, that smoke
mixing with minerals in ordinary dirt,
particles of hair, and dead skin cells,
and moving beyond our solar system
in those huge disks of dust
that have no name.