A Trick I Played on my Mother-in-Law in 1986

by Thom Gorman

Those osteoporotic bones
once climbed the “right steep” granite nobs
above the hollers of Kentucky,
above the blue ash, hickory, and white oak groves...
Those presbycusic ears
once listened to—and heeded—
the Pentecostal tongues,
the hissing snakes, the Rapture fears...
Those macular-degenerated eyes
once saw Halley’s comet
in nineteen hundred and ten.
I asked,
“Do you want to see it again?”
Yes, she nodded.
I took her up Figueroa Mountain
and pointed into the night.
“It was brighter last time,” she said.
I told her the astronomers agreed.
When we came home, her daughter asked,
“Did she see it?”
“Yes,” I said,
not revealing that I’d shown her the moon.