Christa McAuliffe
by Candice Kelsey
My father spent a year sailing around the world & decided not to contact us until he arrived in some obscure San Diego marina. Unless we’re sent down the Nile in a basket—& have some epic tale of woe, the water doesn’t cut it. Bounty hunters lie in wait. Shoguns commit suicide, or worse become swords for hire. Alzheimer’s makes claim to my dad. & The sadness of impermanence buffets any wood, aluminum, or flesh vessel that wades from bank to bank. Perhaps we now need to take to the ether, to get off this earth, this unlucky 13th colony. In January of 1986 I sat with my friends at a table of four trying to pass a quiz; I think it was 10th grade World History. The news on the loudspeakers fluttered like the pages of the I Ching or the birds leaving the temple steps as Death wipes his boots. 73 seconds after lift-off Christa McAuliffe & the crew of the Challenger were lost to the world. I’m not into tattoos, but I’ve considered what she told Johnny Carson in a pre-launch interview: When you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. Just get on. Perhaps on my arm. For now I have converted half of my bed into a spaceship for relaxation—isn’t that an awful thing to do?
Candice Kelsey (she/her) is a poet, educator, and activist currently living in Augusta, Georgia. She serves as a creative writing mentor with PEN America's Prison & Justice Writing Program; her work appears in Grub Street, Poet Lore, Lumiere Review, Hawai'i Pacific Review, and Slant among other journals. Recently, Candice was chosen as a finalist in Iowa Review's Poetry Contest and Cutthroat's Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Her third book titled A Poet just released with Alien Buddha Press. Find her on Twitter @candicekelsey1 and www.candicemkelseypoet.com.
