Planetarium

Under the cool dome where I sat,
imagining stars could still exist
behind blue sky, my high school
class, disappearing under ballooned ceilings,
darkness, overtaken by constellations,
drawing the way out from East Pittsburgh
in pinpricks of light.

Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia.
I drew gods in study hall, mermaids,
men with horse legs and wings,
leaning back on the auditorium chairs
while the cataclysm broke loose,
universes, rupturing in ear shattering bangs,
the narrator reminding us how small we all were, 

how momentary in the blur of manufactured light,
switches flicked on, bringing me back
staggering onto the school bus,
my head down, I kept falling,
spiraling in dreams above the mill towns
and rooftops where I lived, the hills of coal
and skies burning with the fires of Carrie, Braddock,
ghosting Pittsburgh in shadow, ash,
dreaming I could be somewhere, anywhere but here.



Robert Walicki’s work has appeared in over 50 journals, including Pittsburgh City Paper, Fourth River,Chiron Review, and Red River Review. A Pushcart and a Best of The Net nominee, Robert has published two chapbooks: A Room Full of Trees (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014) and The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press), which was nominated to the 2016 List of Books for New York City’s Poets House. His first full-length collection, Black Angels, is now available from Pittsburgh’s Six Gallery Press.