I am driving on Virgil Avenue
I will only find out later
That the helix of otherworldly light
Illuming much of the western sky

Is one of Elon Musk's Falcon rockets
Launched from a hundred miles up the coast
It looks so close that I comfort myself
With the thought that it's only someone's idea of a joke

Everybody has their phones out
We're all hoping this is somehow both
The defining moment of a lifetime
And just a diversion on the way home

We all leave our cars in idle
We’re staring up at the fish-looking thing
I roll down my window and ask
Just what the hell is going on but nobody responds

I was born the year Richard Nixon resigned
It was a lucky time, a lucky place
Gunsmoke had been on for 20 years
And Kronkite was still in his prime

Every wall we put up seemed built to withstand
A thermal blast from a Russian A-bomb
My parents were still married then
And the state kept lumbering on once Nixon was gone

My mom took away my cap gun
After John Lennon was shot dead
She said what is it with you boys
You’ve got all the wrong ideas in your head

By the time the Berlin Wall fell
Their marriage lay in a rubble heap
Everything got messy when
Neither side had the other to blame nor the other to keep

I am lying in the darkness
You’re next to me but I feel so alone
I know that I'm safe and warm
But I can’t shake this shiver off of my bones

I've heard all about the rocket
And Space X and Elon Musk
Still I expect to see that helix
Every day when I get off of work and drive into the dusk

I am floating on a river
Staring up at that blank slate of black
I'm thinking about the election
Which is now more than three years back

My friend Tyler said it well
When he said we’re all good and trapped
Strapped together in this tin can
Lurching up and falling fast, bracing for impact