The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Mom in Space by Lisa Ampleman

This selection, chosen by guest editor JJ Rowan, is from Mom in Space by Lisa Ampleman (LSU Press 2024).

Mom in Space

In space, to move is to translate,

as in

she carried a subaqueous nocturnal
mammal in a bespoke pouch,
translated it over maria—
molten rock solidified
over centuries—to the
designated landing site,
fired the descent engine,
till the contact light blazed.

as in

she translated across the dining module
to the high chair to turn the wide-eyed,
open-mouthed child over
and hit his back repeatedly
between the shoulder blades
until a piece of chicken
just the size of a windpipe
translated out onto the floor.

as in

she stared at the orange bottle,
tried to translate the name
of this month’s medication into sense,
move the complicated nomenclature
to something her mouth could pronounce,
its chalky discs ready to trick
her pituitary, make the eggs
inside her develop, fertile,
moons that wax gibbous
rather than leave a dark cyst
in lieu of light.

as in

her body translated to the heavens,
the equigravisphere, hanging
between her two worlds, the child
who was forged and welded
into being, and the other just stardust
and antineutrinos; she’s been tranquil
in the silence of the theoretical one—
it knows how to soothe her in its
neverness—but finally she’s ready
to get pulled into the calamity,
slurry, gristle of reality, its forceful
gravity, its robust communications
array. She fires a booster on her jetpack,
lets the planet’s liquid iron core
translate her into orbit once again.

Lisa Ampleman is the author of the poetry collections Full Cry and Romances. She is the managing editor of the Cincinnati Review and the poetry series editor at Acre Books.

JJ Rowan is a queer nonbinary poet and dancer whose writing and movement practices have developed largely out of collaborative approaches and the pursuit of deep connection. They are looking for the places where the written line and the lines of the moving body intersect, where genre blurs and remixes and reboots, and where style and role reach maximum fluidity and deeper capacity. Their chapbook, a simple verb, is available from Bloof Books. You can follow their handwriting and movement projects on Instagram.