"The SS American Star" by Glenn Shaheen, from Predatory

THE SS AMERICAN STAR by Glenn Shaheen, from Predatory

Somewhere a house in which a thousand dreams

were born burns to the ground. The family is inside

and dies. Or they're away

at dinner, returning to embers. The point is, many

of those dreams involved this house, its rooms, all the love

that could flood its halls. Now,

ash. Actually, we should start

smaller. Somewhere a treehouse in which ten dreams

were born burns to the ground.

                        Or a woman enters a room

in the middle of a lecture and everybody turns

to see her, expecting to be astonished. A sea of heads

in one smooth wave.

But she is nobody special. She has recently

had her heart broken. Who hasn't? This is not

glamorous.

                        Years ago, the SS American Star

was one of the premiere cruise ships in the world.

Thousands of people rode her all over the Atlantic,

the Pacific. Celebrities. Lottery winners.

Couples blowing some of their savings. Their love

in winded tatters. Or newlyweds. Their lives

smooth glass. And singles. There was much sex and dance.

Many hoped to book

a room on the ship one day. But the ship fell apart. Bit by bit. The paint

went, and pipes. The bones couldn't hold

the skin. Passengers stopped. The ship began to haul cold

freight. Metals. Oil. Eventually, a storm wrecked

the ship at Fuertaventura, off the coast of Africa,

in shallow waters. It broke in half, two hundred yards

from shore. And it still sits, rusted, gutted of former thoughts

and the buzz of ghosts, just

off shore. The townspeople ignore it. In Arkansas,

a high school social studies teacher explains to her students that everything

they adore in life has been earned by military

action. Some amount of flame and metal has bought

all the knick knacks and meals they need

for everyday living. They realize

that this is a source for intense pride. All thirty kids breathe in

at once. This creates the smallest fluctuation

in the pressure of the classroom

killing millions of tiny germs and bacteria all housed

in the hot crevices

of their skin, invisible to the naked eye.

http://glennshaheen.com/