Rockets

A little Russian boy
sits to watch the news.
His mother speaks
the new American,
his father 
takes to drinking.

A space rocket
takes off in front of him
in staggering black and white,
in his eyes
it mirrors and takes his 
soul for a ride.

He puts his father in 
place of the monkey onboard.
His mother chitters on the
phone like a yellow canary.
Her dark hair in pressed waves
and she tells him to call
her "mother".
He cannot understand.

She is placed into the
rocket as well.

He sits cross-legged,
scuffed knees from a
playground kerfuffle.
He was pushed for being a 
commie.
A dirty commie, and 
a little Patriot spits
in his hair.

Beautiful west Russian 
blonde boy,
his mama from a 
village of thirty,
his father from Moscow.
Meeting years after
the Revolution
to move to 
ticky-tacky houses
in east Jersey.

Little Russian boy with
eyes star-dappled,
he can't understand the
American flag.
He misses Babushka's
walks with him to 
the park.
His mother
cannot take him out.

He climbs aboard his shiny rocket
and takes off for
his homeland.
Father pours the new 
whiskey,
a burning amber 
our boy once tried to drink.
He cried alcohol tears
for a week.

Space rockets whizzing in the
stars, through the asteroid belt.
He hopes to land on
Neptune.
He thinks it would be perfect,
his comics show 
beautiful creatures living there
in colorful houses.
Every house on his street
is white.

Sitting in front of a
television set,
this boy dreams of 
home.
A vague word
to describe the aching places
in his bones.