April 4, 2021
Photo by Ruby Berry
Lost in Space . . . . .
by Science Duuuude
The last tenuous ties to home
stretch and snap in the airless ink of space.
Hand prints fade on the cold glass
membrane separating life from emptiness.
Space is not empty… I say to no one.
It is full to the brim… my emptiness smiles.
Before me blooms a nebula riotous with colors
Like an unruly English garden.
Radiation spilling out like scents in all directions.
Ashes to ashes… dust to dust.
New stars glimmer from the compost of old stars.
Their afterbirth spilling out… messy with life.
I inhabit my ship like a conscience.
Arguing with myself as the metal shell moves through crowds
of atoms… particles… dust… etching their impacts on my skin.
I calculate the duration of my toughness and integrity,
steer my path and titrate my interactions
so I may last the duration of the voyage.
There… a quiet, dark corner of the newly dubbed Pig Nebula.
Like the fertile dank under a log or rock.
Sheltered by distance or chance from the bright blast of giants
And their angry sterilizing exhalations.
A small yellow star still wrapped in an obscuring placenta of dust
My ship’s a steel spore, embeds within the dust… and waits…