Glenn Ingersoll


How My Mother Died

She was piloting a plane -
no? a rocket ship?
She was piloting a rocket ship
when the cosmic rays
turned her into a superhero.
When she got back down
to earth she had to fight
crime as she could anticipate
criminal actions and then
use a force beam out of her
nipples to knock the bad guys
out. I endured some
teasing in grade school
over the nipple part of her
amazing powers. Anyway,
she was 52 when she had me,
then she got cosmic ray cancer
which makes you ever more
young, beautiful, and powerful
until you explode in a mini-nova.
Mom had to fly into the sun
in order to save us all.
And that is how my mother died.



I Didn't Take Off My Skin This Time

I didn't take off my skin this time
in order to put on the dream's skin
so less sensation
translated

United States Post Office, listen
that is the sound of red and shadow
if you have an ear tuned to your surface

radio, I don't know your song
it's nice not hearing what comes next
because I haven't heard the future
verse chorus

yes, I looked at the body passing
its inner workings not mic'd
the clothes reducing to a hum
the contours of the song



Time

for H.

timelessness
seemed to move
but not
in space




Glenn Ingersoll works for the public library in Berkeley, California where he hosts Clearly Meant, a reading & interview series. He has two chapbooks, City Walks (broken boulder) and Fact (Avantacular). A multi-volume prose work, Thousand (MCTPub) is now available from Amazon; ebook from Smashwords. He keeps two blogs, LoveSettlement and Dare I Read. Recent work has appeared in Futures Trading, Curly Mind, and Caveat Lector.
 
 
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