This from Southern Review, 2007 (?)

ROCKET GIRL

for Beth and Lucy

Cindy Shepard—I remember—

gold hair, brown eyes, soft voice,

a smell like toast and apples,

what I ate each morning—

the classroom sweet with Cindy,

where, one day, when asked

our fathers’ occupations, Cindy said,

a spaceman, and suffered mocking

from her groundling classmates. 

But I stayed quiet, and on the bus

that circumsailed our orbit,

I told her I believed her, 

because I couldn’t in much else.

Years later, Commander Shepard

rode a Redstone into space,

and my own trajectory carried me

to distant schools, and Cindy became

Connie, Caroline, and Shiela,

became the smell of toast and apples

my daughter eats for breakfast, a moon

that wanders wider every year,

my gravity diminished, my orbit

more elliptic, the sun’s grip growing

weaker, stars more than ever kin,

as I drift closer, devoted spaceman,

to worlds where trees bear golden fruit

plucked by golden sisters.