All this blood pooling in my shoes
plus what was that thumping
through your ten gallon hat?
Let me call you back
I say about a hundred times
a day, promises breaking
even as they’re made
and still you bank
on some nebulous future return.
What are you, an idiot?
Because a funny smell on the space station
can’t be explained,
the space walk
is extended indefinitely,
those lonely few left drifting
along silvery contours
with nothing to do
but count stars through the static.
Yeah well, we got problems too,
even my parakeet grown
radioactive and ornery,
massive arrows whistling through the night.
Probably you are an idiot,
I mean, lookit the way
you’re standing there
pining at the window,
but also who could blame you.
Your puppy full of brutality.
Your lover covered in seaweed,
never to return,
that big invisible rip
down the center of your chest,
never to depart.
Another fault built into the design,
another empty plinth.
I don’t know if a manta ray
unfolds, exactly, but
that’s what is happening
to my heart.
Something swirling
in even the most boring stone
in the enormous field of stones.
Probably it’s only a matter of time
before we’re doused with disinfectant,
before they lift the quarantine
and tell us to go home.
