Migration

Once the cosmonauts blast off
and the diehards crawl

into fortified bunkers, there
follows a live lottery, but no one

flees to mountain dugouts or border lands this time.
Instead, civilians perch curbside, curl

and crouch on couches. Strung out and jittery,
they tap feet, twitch legs, strum digits

amidst puffing smoke that drifts
past flickering blue shadows

formed by stiff announcers who statically
spew statistics laced with strangers’ names.

Others hunch over chipped
concrete counters, grooved tables,

each fiddling with dials to catch the clearest channel.
The millions leftover linger, stomachs

wrenched, hands rung, brows furrowed,
sharing a collective uncertainty.

Miles from nowhere in a dim barn,
a little hand tugs her father’s faded overalls

and asks him the solitary question plaguing the masses:
Who gets to go to the moon?