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Emma Hine: “Red Planet”

November 28, 2018 by PBQ Leave a Comment

All Mars can see, bolted in place, 
is the sky. She recites red sky at night, sailor’s 
delight until her atmosphere shimmers. 
She wants to be visible from everywhere, 
          the brightest storm brewing 

in this big wide sea. She converts sensations 
into units of distance and units of force, 
so that each time a body collides with her, 
she can add it to her catalogue of impact: 
          where, how hard, 

how long the tremor. She lifts the oxide dust 
gently from a crater and says asteroid 
at an oblique angle, seventy-eight miles across. 
She does this just by feel. No looking. 
          Which might be why 

she so loves the probes. When they land, 
she goes as still as she can, so they won’t startle 
and unlatch. She wants them always charting 
her shoal plains. When one enters 
          her gravity too slowly 

and bounces away, she wonders what 
went wrong. She imagines it lost 
out there, how it wanted her, couldn’t 
          touch her, or stay.

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