Christmas Telescope

By Fred Donovan

Somewhere between Venus and Arcturus, 
my daughter and I squint to see
the comet that will not return
for 80,000 years, give or take a millennium.

But the supermoon drowns
the comet’s dim light,
and clouds move in to ensure
the failed viewing. “We’ll see it when

it comes back,” I joke. She is not amused.
“Maybe we can catch the meteor shower
later in the month,” I add, hopefully.
When I was a boy, I loved to look
at the moon’s craters, Saturn’s rings,
Jupiter’s moons – okay, I couldn’t
see those – with a cheap telescope

I got for selling Christmas cards 
to my neighbors and parents’ friends
who grudgingly looked through 
my catalog every December.

Fred Donovan is an author and editor who writes about technology to make money and crafts poems to keep him sane. He has published poems in numerous journals, including Littoral Magazine, Freshwater Literary Journal, Drifting Sands, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Akitsu Quarterly, frogpond, Modern Haiku, and Black Bough. He lives on Cape Cod with his family and enjoys walks along the beach.