Space Marriage

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.