Lisa Marie Nowak, robo-chick rock star,

said there was only one way to go: up. What was your summer vacation, Lisa?

A trip into space. 

The microbiologist and the computer consultant, They took you to museums,

They showed you the sky And you dared to dream: Planes and rockets. 

A universe opened up to you. The microbiologist and the computer consultant, 

Showed you footsteps on the moon And you followed. You never were a little girl. 

You never wanted to be a little girl. You wanted to be a space explorer. Nothing was going to get in your way. 

Luxmanor Elementary/Tilden Junior High/Woodward High School/Naval Academy/Naval Test Pilot/NASA

Who was your prom date, Lisa Marie?

Did you point to the cardboard backdrop, 

the glitter stars, and say to him “I cannot settle for this.”

Who was the first boy you said “made you believe in heaven.”

 Didn’t you believe all along?

Who fucked you in a bathroom stall?

Who first pulled your hair and called you sexy with beer on his breath? 

Danger, you whispered through clenched teeth.  

Who left you first? How many walked away? 

How many times did you consider chasing them down, killing them, but you stopped, “restraint.”

Did you spend years shutting down that part of you? 

You got married, you had kids, but discovery kept calling. 

So you kept at it… Telling yourself that love, 

love was so terrestrial, and you weren’t going to settle for anything burdened by gravity. 

Up you went. 

Leaving behind your babies, all three of them, 

Telling the newspapers how brave they were. 

How they wanted you to go, We all sacrifice, you said, for greater things.

And on February 6, 2007. You went to the store. 

You filled up your gas tank

And you strapped in. Checking your vitals, 

Preparing for the long journey,

And you made your way 1,000 miles out. 

On another mission

Did you listen to the radio in the car? 

Or did you spend that time thinking about what you’d left behind 

And maybe you wished you’d smiled in front of that backdrop? 

And maybe you missed living like fucking? 

And maybe you wanted a lover that understood why your heaven was empty.

So you destroyed what stood in your way. 

And you listen as they say, Lisa Marie Nowak, 

That space was too much for you. Too rigorous, too demanding, and you failed, you may never fly again. 

What are you going to do now? 

As you sit there in that holding tank, away from your children, 

away from your man, away from the other woman you thought had taken from you, 

away from a life you crafted at age five.

Do you wring your hands,

Do you think “if only…”

“If only I’d never come down.”

I wonder if you pray you never pass a window at night. 

If you do, I pray you never look up.  

Your punishment, Lisa, looms above you. 

I wonder if you remember what it’s like to float, 

what’s it’s like to block the earth with your thumb,

 and live only focused the task ahead.