NAVAJO MOON
by Gary Every

The first lunar astronauts
were training in northern Arizona
because some of the lava fields
resemble the surface of the moon.
One day a group of Navajo elders
were taken out to the training site
by government publicists.

One of the elders,
a brown skinned old warrior
whose face was as wrinkled and craggy
as the lava fields themselves
asked the government officials
if he could record a message
in the Navajo language
to be played through loudspeakers
to anyone on the moon
who might be listening.
Recognizing a golden public relations moment
when they saw one
the government quickly agreed.

When they played the message
back to the old man's son;
the boy could not stop laughing.
When they took the tape
to the nearest Navajo village
and played it
the people all giggled
refusing to tell them what it said.

They called in a government translator.
He laughed too
but at least he told them
what was on the tape.
The message went like this.
"People of the moon, Beware!
These assholes want to steal your land."

HEADPHONES
by Donald Illich

The thwacks of arrows hitting
the wall at night don't bother me.
A new TV season has started:
I love criminals on court shows
finally being brought to justice.
I'm also mastering the controls,
the soldier I play in a videogame
has nearly found the villain's hideout.

Neither do buckets of boiling water
we drop on them concern me.
I'm sure they had it coming,
who doesn't? I'll shop tomorrow
for combat boots, the kind I saw
cool kids wear, and everyone knows
I'm militant about my fashion.

Explosions next door can't worry me,
the bodies unrecognizable in smoke.
Plenty of good friends talk to me
on the computer, and when one dies
someone takes over their sites. All
of us continue our discussions: music,
movies, other important going-ons.

The images I saw one night, the half-
melted girl, a boy shitting out his
guts, eyes floating in bloody cream,
have shown up in my nightmares.

But I have a new therapist, a bundle
of medicines I love more than mom.
If they're really working I can't
understand the nightly news. It's like
wearing really great headphones;
all that comes through is laughter.
.