sally & valentina

a capsule made of hair--
the earth's gumball & teeth,
what could women know of space?
each stage of the rocket
another leg broken off at the knee.
there are girls up there
i say from between the green
curtains of my bedroom. billy 
has a telescope that we can
never focus right. 

i had thought for the longest 
time that sally ride was
the first woman in space
but it was actually 
valentina tereshkova,
a bulb planted in the knotted
chest of the soviet union,
skin stolen from a textile
factory, her father riding
a tractor across the ceiling
of my bedroom. i mistake him
for the farmer who raises
corn across the street.

i dream of them meeting,
sally & valentina. i would
go too as a witness. bodies
tumbling around each other,
can we be celestial or
are our bones too light,
like the birds?

they should have gone up
together, so they both 
could have been the first
women in space. valentina
went entirely alone &
the closest to that i think
i'll ever feel is when i 
drove on the four-lane highway
at night on the way from 
pennsylvania to maine-- 
counting the red stars

up there, where everything
is quiet, i would ask them
questions. i would say 
what do you do when science
tears you apart?
& sally wouldn't cry but
would recount 
the story of Challenger &
Columbia & the making 
of debris 

& valentina wouldn't
answer anything about space
but would describe the countryside
out a window of a train 
crossing the soviet union--
the blurred faces of towns

i would tell them that
when i was a little girl
they taught me that space
could know my body,
pull out my hair & eat my
name like a handful of foil.

the surface of mars cramps up
& the space ship has
always been a bathtub. 
the water comes down & their
bodies melt & only i am left
alone in a car traveling somewhere

i make saints of them 
as i must. a dashboard prayer
as the night sky sits impenetrable 
above the highway, i point at
it & say-- there's girls up there.