Kris Becker

Earthrise

It was 1968. Why not fuck
away the world? One bullet,
one can of gas, father
who maybe didn’t like you all
that much. Then, as now, hard to be smart
and beautiful. Cigarettes, alcohol,
another bullet, brothers
headed for the draft. Everything green,
convulsing, in a rage. What a girl
wanted didn’t matter, pulsar,
radio, SOS, math. There were too many
people in that tiny house, always
someone crying, or wanting to.
Everything swollen: did she want it? Cock,
then gut, then face. Prom came
and went. The tadpole lodged
and owes its life to this:
poverty, religion, and the law.

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“I was born in December 1968. ‘Earthrise’ imagines my mother’s experience as a teenager who became pregnant that year, while the war in Vietnam and corresponding civil unrest disrupted her family, community, and worldview.” —Kris Becker

Kris Becker was a first-gen student at Willamette University, then a Peace Corps volunteer, and then completed an MFA in poetry at Syracuse and a career in nonprofit leadership in northwestern Washington state. Her poems and translations have appeared in Terrain.org, CALYX, Willow Springs, Two Lines, and elsewhere. She lives in Port Townsend.