Air Date: Week of May 8, 2026

In the poem “Saturnine,” Aimee Nezhukumatathil recalls when her then-seven-year-old son announced that one day, he would live on Saturn. (Photo: Zelch Csaba, Pexels, Public Domain)

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of the collection of poems Night Owl, joined us in April for poetry month. And in this poem, called “Saturnine,” Aimee recalls a moment when her then-seven-year-old son announced his plan to move to Saturn, reminding her that one day, she’d have to let her little boy fly from the nest. Aimee Nezhukumatathil speaks with Host Jenni Doering.

Transcript

O’NEILL: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

DOERING: And I’m Jenni Doering.

For families with a high school senior, the month of May can be a bittersweet time of year. As colleges dole out acceptances (and rejections), many of those young people prepare to begin a new chapter. And their parents, perhaps, have to learn to let go. Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of the collection of poems Night Owl, joined us in April for poetry month. And in this poem, called “Saturnine,” Aimee recalls a moment when her then-seven-year-old son announced his plan to move to Saturn, reminding her that one day, she’d have to let her little boy fly from the nest.

NEZHUKUMATATHIL: I think maybe some mothers would be like, oh, cute, haha. And I just, you know, I mean, that boy's mom was a poet, and all, and the one who stays up at night worrying and so that is just like the, almost the worst thing you could say as a seven-year-old. Oh, gosh, it's so dramatic. But it truly was like, I could feel my heart race, you know, like and "saturnine," I found out, you know, the origins of the kind of the most somber, morose god of Greek mythology, which is what the planet Saturn was named after. But to be "saturnine" means to be morose and brooding. So I just thought that was so interesting. This is my version of being saturnine.

"Saturnine"
for P

When you told me you wanted to live on Saturn,
my hands grew cold like all the blood rushed
to my heart to help it in its purple panic. I never

even thought of losing you until then. Silly, stupid
mother— arrogant from each moment you reached
for my hand, reached for my neck, lifted your belly

to mine, or begged me for a snack. My darling—
every season on Saturn lasts seven years. When you
announced your plan of living among all those

jumping yellow moons, we would have still been
in your first long summer— seven years of that
heat wave with ice pops staining your mouth.

Seven years of collecting flowers in a butterfly net
for my pillow. Seven years of lifting the windows
each morning, a small hallelujah to hear the cardinal

spin a song over your bed. When you told me not
to worry, you’d visit, you’d come back to me—
all I could think of was the black-sick of you tunneling

through space without me. How blue nebulas might
dampen your very good cheeks. I know it will come.
That day will come. But today, let’s enjoy the long summer.

Enjoy the mosquito bites, the little sandals chaos- flung
on the patio. Let’s see who can make the biggest, most brilliant
spray of light when we bite into our cobs of corn.

DOERING: Brooding and letting go a little bit, I think? Starting to realize that at some point you'll have to let go?

NEZHUKUMATATHIL: Yeah, yeah, it's so wild. It's, you know, in those moments, I couldn't even, even just that thought of college the first seven years is not even on my ra-, just literally not on my radar at all. So it was kind of a now, oh, my goodness, I can feel my my voice catch a little bit, you know, knowing that we're here. We're at that moment that I could still remember being on the couch with him at that moment when he's like, yeah, I'm going to Saturn, you know? I'm gonna live on Saturn. So that's where I'm gonna be when I grow up. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And truthfully, you know what I what I kind of realized in the revision of that poem is, sometimes that's what it feels like, like I can't believe he's not in this house. You know, he might as well be on Saturn. It feels so far away, and he's just a few hours away, but feels like he's in outer space.

DOERING: Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Her poem "Saturnine" appears in her 2026 collection, Night Owl.

 

Links

Learn more about Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Listen to our full interview with Aimee about her book Night Owl: Poems