The Stonewall Spaceship
By Justin Karcher
A June night in 2019
on a street you can find
anywhere in America
people still trying to connect
phone chargers shoved into chests
just a little more charge, a little more juice
and maybe we’ll have the power
to right this ship with love
with honesty, with words
we dig out of bruises
but an invisible train keeps rumbling by
you can’t avoid its noise
the grueling dance
between steel and speed
fire snot spewing
from its defunct heart
a monstrous relic from the past
crashing into bedrooms, into conversations
swallowing voices
trying to tell their stories
still a silencing from coast to coast
still priests that turn children into ghosts
still cops that slash the tires in our bones
still presidential wrecking balls aimed at our homes
still no dancing allowed but we really need the rhythm
still they treat certain kinds of love as if they’re cataclysms
still they tweet that glaciers fall from certain kinds of lips
still they cover up our bodies like a totalitarian eclipse
still there are people all across America scared of orgasms
still there are people crying alone, phantoms lost in the static
a June night in 2019
a shooting star in the sky
that gets bigger like a plane
but it’s not a plane, it’s a spaceship
a time traveling spaceship
built from the bricks and blood of Stonewall
a riot in the sky
wormholing through different eras
inspiring marginalized groups to fight back
to love, to be loved, to sing, to dance
if you’re ever feeling beaten-down, just look at the sky
you are astronomy, the Stonewall spaceship coming back around