Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, December 1, 2020

The conversations on the beach and the ball
courts went like this: Mi tío trabaja

en Arecibo. And they all understood. Hope
is hope and it lives on top of a mountain. Hope

on this mountain did not need
to summit. If you knew how, it could keep

going straight into the stars. But for a cable. And another
cable. And today they shut down the sky. And my childhood

stars blinked out into past tense. Shut themselves
to the crumbing dish, to the metal leaning out

of meaning. So I practice this now: Mi tío trabajaba
en Arecibo. And the ocean knew its sharks. The mountain

knew its cars, streaming scientists, techs with their backs
to space, with their space surrendering hope, surrendering

the mountain—their newly blind island feeling
for what it could.