Middle School Science Class

Poem

Sep 2

inspired by Denise Duhamel’s “Nature”

Mrs. Smeyser explained the life cycle of stars.

Our sun, a yellow dwarf, will become a red giant.

Flames will consume Mercury and Venus

like appetizers before reaching Earth.

My ears ignored the 5-billion-year timeline.

I exclaimed, We’re going to burn to death!

Mrs. Smeyser laughed, I don’t plan on being around.

Giggles wafted through the air.

A few students looked as horrified as me.

Maybe they too were Southern Baptists

raised on fearing a city of flames. I knew

God would use the sun for the final destruction.

The red giant loomed. My face red from its heat.

09/22

Dustin Brookshire, a finalist for the 2021 Scotti Merrill Award, founder/editor of Limp

Wrist, curator of the Wild & Precious Life Series (a Zoom-based poetry reading series), program

director for Reading Queer, founding chapter president of the South Florida Poets, and co-editor

of a forthcoming Madville Publishing Dolly Parton poetry anthology. He is the author of two

chapbooks: Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021) and To The One Who Raped

Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012).

New Year