Chad Foret

My baby has milk delivered to the house—

it’s luminescent, mined from cosmic rocks.

She drinks it in the garden in her mauve

mosquito hat. Most of the milk ends up

in spittoons after wistful swishing. She

keeps a locked book with tasting notes

& assorted opinions, but the key is in a safe

on the moon, so there’s no getting that. She

leaves her spacesuit on the kitchen table.

She’s met the many animals sent out there

by our best & brightest monsters all those

years ago. They don’t speak their mother

tongues anymore. Evolved, they babble like

babies. It’s always night, so life is a dream.

Constellations call the house: Monoceros, etc.

I want to rock her to sleep, but she has plans

on remote planets my telescope can’t touch.

I stay outside just in case she cries for me,

the little I have to give in this mosquito

cloud, my dew shield sweeping stars.