O God O Galaxy: An Origin Story
Lucas Pingel
A gift from an unidentified drifter fell to my feet, gave me power.
My footsteps collected light, tagged the ground until I could walk
these parts unknown to me no more. I remember a call from home, I remember
the radio signal of my mother’s heartbeat, the way it cocooned me. Did I break it
apart, or could we fix it with a guitar string and some glue?
Dear Universe, pieces of you run away from home and die every second.
How do you keep it together? Someone should make you an ashtray. Once,
I looked away from the road for a second. When I focused, the continents had divorced
and I was floating alone in an ocean. It doesn’t matter how old I was. You hung a sun
for company, you sent flowers and crashed airplanes to pass the time.
It felt familiar. It felt like I was pregnant
with a brave new galaxy and my feet just got real wet.
Lucas Pingel is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Yes, I Am Sure This Was a Beautiful Place (Strange Cage, 2013). His poetry and reviews have appeared most recently in Notre Dame Review, Chariton Review, Heavy Feather Review, and Lake Effect. He is an assistant professor at St. Catherine University in the Twin Cities, where he lives with his wife, Autumn, and son, Charlie.