Ad Astra

Twinkling,
                two-gallon plastic bags, pot-bellied 
                                with mirror-clear water, water balloons
                                                tied like plump stars along the tin roof field
of metal joists, hard lights, and lazy fans that span Rudy’s Barbecue.

We had hardly noticed them
                above our tough table and bench,
                                our beer bottles laying down wet rounds on kraft paper mats,
                                                our sticky red fingers and spittled lips, 
til sweet air licked them slowly round like the beef dripping on the spit below
                or the earth on its axis.

The counterman sluiced pink juices from a massive slab of beef.
                The bags terrify the flies, he said, they see themselves inside, 
                                ballooned tenfold and buzz off.

Could be. I found no flies on me.
                Neither did I hear a fly buzz while we dined, 
                                lavishing praise on meat and works of art,
beneath the hanging stars, thought bubbles shining, eager for wishes,
                or bright ideas or hope.

ADA LOWENTHAL

For more than fifteen years, while working as an architect and educator, Ada Lowenthal wrote poetry in private—no submissions, no workshops, mostly no good. Since retiring, she has honed her craft and shared her work. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Road Not Taken, and Rat’s Ass Review, and she has attended the Kenyon Writers Workshop and the New York State Summer Writers Institute.