American Life in Poetry

Sun., June 30, 2013

Ted Kooser U.S. poet laureate, 2004-06

Here’s a splendid poem by James Doyle, who lives in Colorado, about the way children make up mythic selves that will in some way serve them in life. To create one’s self as a palm reader is only one of many possibilities.

In the Planetarium

I read the palms of the other

kids on the field trip to see

which ones would grow up

to be astronauts. The lifeline

on Betty Lou’s beautiful hand

ended the day after tomorrow,

so I told her how the rest

of our lives is vastly over-rated,

even in neighboring galaxies.

When she asked me how I knew

so much, I said I watched

War of the Worlds six times

and, if she went with me to

the double-feature tomorrow,

I’d finish explaining the universe.

I smiled winningly. The Halley’s Comet

lecture by our teacher whooshed in

my one ear and out the other.

Poem copyright 2012 by James Doyle, from “The Long View Just Keeps Treading Water,” Accents Publishing, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.