Watering the arid land

With tears, newsprint forms a compost.

I remember my dead parents and abandoned daughter.

I desecrate the tattered life raft.

There is an abundance of powdered milk

Which I mix with my own urine.

This foiled astronaut suit is warm enough. Weather

Patterns never matter

If you live in a vacuum.

Time to roll out a blanket

In this gravitational meadow

Until I burn from the solar winds

Make friends with the neighbors until

The red giant grabs me firmly around the collar.

The white dwarf kicks me in the shins.

The black hole tugs mercilessly from my rectum.

This seems the perfect place to spend a short billion years.

(This  poem appeared originally in “Mudfish 15,” 2007, p.42.)

© Richie Smith