Timothy comes to our house at nine o’clock this morning
to watch the launch of Apollo 11,
which will carry three men to the moon.
Papa says if we don’t see this historic event,
we will regret it the rest of our lives
because he’ll never speak to us again.
But he doesn’t have to tell me that,
even if it is a joke.
Mama brings me a tube of butcher paper,
which I unroll on the living room floor
to make a map of this historic event.
I draw Earth
and the Saturn V rocket steaming on the launchpad.
I draw a window near the top,
and Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins
waving.
“One day that will be me,” I say,
and Timothy and Papa say, “May-be.”
Mama says, “Just be careful.”
Then I draw the moon
two hundred thousand miles away from Earth.
“Good luck and Godspeed,” says the control tower
to the astronauts,
and Neil Armstrong answers, “We know it will be a good flight.”
The countdown begins,
and the numbers on the TV change every second—
as my heart pounds for the astronauts—
“. . . five . . . four . . . ignition sequencing starts . . . two . . . one . . .
zero.”
Fire and smoke billow from the launchpad
and Saturn V leaves the ground.
“Liftoff. We have a liftoff.”
The flaming fuel putters, pushing Saturn V higher
and higher in the sky, through the clouds.
I feel power, speed, and the drag of gravity.
The rocket looks like it’s traveling sideways.
The boosters break away,
and now the ship becomes a bird with fanlike wings,
now a faint dot.
“You’re looking good,” says Houston.
Timothy and I pick up each end of the butcher paper
and carry it up to my room.
We tape it on the long wall.
I draw a dotted line for the flight path,
from Earth to the moon
and back—
for the eight days the astronauts will be in space.
And I draw a solid line for their trip so far.
I will draw them
all the way home.