Mining for Memory

I am my father's son, his broken drill
bit he used to mine for magic dust. I read
the signs in books, calculate the distance between
now and never, await celestial manifestations.

The world-ship eyes the Earth, climbs back down
the sky, lands at my puddled feet, sings the quiet stars
to glow amid street snow. Around us, a night sun
circles, sheds its dead light like winter's last white black-

ash that settles on freshly fallen drifts.
The world-ship visitors disembark its metallic skin,
descend their escalator ramp, greet me
in my native tongue, say that the slow past

still waits inside a fistful of magic dust. Father lived
in a glass house but never threw stones—except
the ones that flew from his hands without volition.
Our once warm and open home bares its hearth, dark and deep,

barren of kindling. His hands, filled with dust,
cast cold fires at the oceanic world-ship
in its harbor. Did I raise my hand in protest? “No!
Stop! The aliens are our friends.” I am

my father's son, mirroring his acts without notice.
How many reflections do we pass in a day: windows,
puddles, small children, and chrome-plated fenders?
The visitors scamper up their ramp like rodents fleeing

a house on fire. The world-ship flies, its eerie shimmer
shone off the incoming tidal waves. Father’s fingers
clench dust shaped into a rock of flames, ready to aim,
stayed by a son’s small hand. I am my father’s son.









Work by Trent Walters has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals, including Asimov's, Dreams & Nightmares, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Mid-America Poetry Review, and Minnesota River Review. His poetry chapbook, Learning the Ropes, was released by Morpo Press.