Brittney Corrigan

October 20, 2019

“Astrosisters” by Brittney CorriganPosted by

Brittney Corrigan

ASTROSISTERS

On the Earth that passes beneath, leaves brighten,
nova-like, in the cooling air, and young girls ready

their costumes for Halloween. Growing bones step into
flight suits with embroidered names, transparent globes

frame buoyant faces freckled with stars. Miles above,
two women navigate the Space Station in weightless

calm, their voices tethered to the woman in Mission
Control who talks them through each task, each

measured step to power the solar arrays. Like the pace
of this spacewalk, we have come to this moment

slowly: when the women do their work in the universe
and their male crewmates look out through the glass.

As the astrosisters climb their way back into the airlock,
Girl Scout troops are rapt with attention, teenage girls

in physics class follow the live stream on the miracles
of tiny screens in their palms, and the little daughters

not yet in school watch as the hatch door opens. And
where once there was darkness, now there is infinite space.

—from Poets Respond
October 20, 2019

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Brittney Corrigan: “I found myself mesmerized this week by the first all-female spacewalk that took place outside the International Space Station. Astrosisters Jessica Meir and Christina Koch spent 7 hours and 17 minutes replacing a faulty battery charge/recharge unit and completing other ‘get-ahead’ tasks while astronaut Stephanie Wilson guided them from Mission Control. The live stream was also narrated by women from NASA, and throughout the broadcast images from social media were posted on the screen, many of which showed young girls watching this historical moment.” (web)

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December 24, 2017

“I’m Trying to Find a Poem About Christmas That I Actually Like” by Brittney CorriganPosted by

Brittney Corrigan

I’M TRYING TO FIND A POEM ABOUT CHRISTMAS THAT I ACTUALLY LIKE

but they are mostly dated and filled
with words like thine and o’er and behold.

And yes, I do want something about the snow,
and the light as it falls on the snow,

but I could do without the angels today,
or anything unreachable that’s supposed to be

looking out for us down here. And yes, I do
want something about the trees, both outside

and inside, and about the singing, and about
the laying out of the table, or the looping

of ribbons, or the tucking in of children. But
I’m wishing we could leave God out of it.

It’s not God’s job to hang out with us right now
and fix things. I want something that uses

filling stockings as a metaphor for choosing
small kindnesses to tuck into each person’s

heart. Something that reminds us that the horse
knows the way, so if we could just find that horse

and hold on, we’ll come out of all this OK.
Something that, yes, is filled with the glistening

and the sparkling and all things aglow, because
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky—
Yes, that’s the kind of thing I want, all of us

outrunning the storm that’s pushing us out of the year,
and we’re climbing right over the tired pile of reindeer

to what’s really up there for us. The snow coming
down. The way we shape it with our hands and throw.

—from Poets Respond
December 24, 2017

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Brittney Corrigan: “This poem came out of reflecting back on all the difficult and hateful and tragic things that have happened in 2017, though the one news story that really spurred on the writing of the poem was the passage of the new tax bill. With Christmas approaching, I was struggling to find the holiday spirit among all the rubble. This poem is a response to that hopeless/hopeful feeling many of us are currently experiencing.” (web)

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July 16, 2017

“Truck Carrying Live Eels Overturns on Highway 101” by Brittney CorriganPosted by

Brittney Corrigan

TRUCK CARRYING LIVE EELS OVERTURNS ON HIGHWAY 101

As if the headline weren’t enough
it’s the photograph: smashed back
end of a sedan pouring with eels,
the trunk and bumper pulling
away from each other like the jaws
of a feeding whale, surfacing
through krill and zooplankton while
water streams and drains out
either side, one door ajar like a fin
thrust into the flooded roadway,
trying to sieve and swim. And the
thousands of pounds of eels, weighing
almost as much together as a small
whale, exult in their slimy
flight and spillage. They can sense
the ocean just beyond the screeching
tires, the buckling metal, the white
explosions of airbags. The hagfish,
their double rows of keratin teethlets
gasping through the ooze, squirm
and wriggle in their primitive beauty,
a muculent writhing toward the sea,
not to be shipped off to Korea, not
this time, no, they are their own
aphrodisiacs, viscous mass of lives
across the pavement, racing the bulldozer,
the push of its knobby, rolling track
folding them on top of each other
as if they were no more than snow,
clearing a path through the wreckage
in which no one was injured.

—Poets Respond
July 16, 2017

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Brittney Corrigan: “The bizarre nature of this accident captured my imagination when I first read the headline, but the photographs were even more enthralling. As more outlets beyond my local news began to pick up the story, I was struck by two comments in particular. First, a deep sea ecologist describing the 300-million-year-old fish as ‘magnificent,’ and second, the repeated statement that no one was seriously injured. It made me think about the situation from the perspective of these prehistoric, albeit disgusting, creatures.” (website)

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