Past Saturn, Voyager Two Imagines Herself as Liza Minnelli, Voyager One as Peter Allen in Drag

Jessica Rae Bergamino

We burn love wherever we find it,
smother darkness from the hungry stage.

Our wonder is a shadow; our slumber, a bear—
Ursa’s Minor chord without her Major lift.

Yes, I know! our mission was to be the dimmest
workers of the newest empire, both the records

carried and needles pressed upon the gold façade,
but we’re never together, wherever we go.

So I Fosse, darling! I glitter! I beard!
My fingers shake to see you see me,

to wish you to wish upon me, ‘cause out here
I’m a star, darling, a real ringer, a singer singing true

and this time the joke’s on me, not you.
Because what’s a body if not a performance

of letters dressed in human sequin and spark.
Our lives are just cabarets where fat gathers

on milk’s surface like skin waiting to be broken.
Maybe someday we’ll be lucky, shag upon

the same carpet, candle light in the same living room.
You’ll hover above your piano, commercial as a starling

pinned on sky sprawled wires between the moon
and some new alien city. I’ll watch your back curve,

your shirt undo, the drink beside you empty
to closeted darkness. The best that you can do

is rile my feathers, cut my hair. I part my lips
and the whole sky falls out: a 5, 6, 7, 8.


This is one of two poems by Jessica Rae Bergamino. Click to Read "Feeling Underappreciated, Voyager Two Imagines Herself as Miss Piggy."