D. Nurkse (2005)
1
Our starship blew up
between Alpha Centaur
and the Second Quadrant
but we could not die
because we had stolen
the god's codes;
so we kep traveling
deeper into the future
just ahead of our bodies
and when we had sex
we felt ourselves scattering:
there in the galactic cold
where the immense numbers
began to rotate slowly
we put on the robes
of the night sky.
2
An alien had imprisoned me
in that lunar module
that was just the thought
I and he fed me
what I would eat
and mated me
with the one I loved:
strange ordeal
there in the Second Quadrant
in Spica's radio-shadow
where the gravity of time
pulls dreams from a sleeper's mind:
bitter confinement
naked on a falling stone.
3
We built robots who built robots
that had a little of our hesitation,
our fatigue, our jealousy,
our longing for Alpha, peace, nonbeing . . .
They covered our long retreat,
those machines, that looked
like can-openers or outboard motors,
but with the guilty air of husbands
and the god's fixed stare.
4
It was a system:
we loved each other,
the war began on Vega,
we watched the hurtling lights,
and the silence drained us.
5
Out of spit and dust
we made two lovers
who set fire to the world.
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from The Best American Poetry of 2005
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