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Vapor Trails

Bruce Matteson

My ancestors were rocket men of primitive origin
Lacking Kevlar and Aluminum Oxide tile
They cut their teeth on empty toilet tissue rolls,
Hand towel tubes or both taped together with papier-mâché nosecones and
Stabilizer fins snipped from flattened tin-cans
Considering it the height of maturity achieved when they managed manned flights
In recycled concrete pillar forms called sonotubes, finding that those with cementatious residue
Resisted burn-up on re-entry, only slightly better than those without
(No doubt salvaged from off-shore drill rigs and washed clean by the sea)
Though they did lose wind resistance and were dogged by drag from the extra weight, but
Space travel has always been a game of compromise and,
The thing is, they weren’t sissies
There wasn’t a poor sport or cry-baby in the whole bunch of them
Often combining a search for body parts at a hard landing site with a Bar-B-Q
Or clam bake and one story of reconstruction had my kin
Re-assembling fingers of a hand splashed all over fifteen acres, then
Resorting to fisticuffs to settle the argument as to whether
Uncle Wilbur was waving bye to his mom nano seconds before impact
Or flipping off his brother for a sloppy job of taping the tinfoil
It’s hard to say just what happened to genes like that, but
Damnit, I’m happy in a boat......

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