The New Mexico sky is alive,
redder than a child’s wagon on a dusty front lawn
and the stars blink like forgotten Christmas lightswhile constellations shift, dissatisfied with their placements, sending ripples through mythology with every new shape they make.

We have blankets and enough hope among us
to keep the morning star burning above the far hills—
I am flanked by mountainous profiles;
the crag of a nose, the devastating valley of a lip.

We are wondering if someone out there could read our thoughts
if someone would take an interest in what puts our bodies together.
Misguided, we gaze upward.

It’s crazy to believe we’re alone in the universe, someone says,
and I smile into my shoulder, considering,
of all things,
space:

the starry unknown
between fingers and words.

Going nowhere?
Wrong.
The earth is spinning at 1038 miles per hour,
whipping ‘round the Sun at 18 miles per second.
Our solar system is travelling the galaxy
at 155 miles per second,
and our galaxy is sprinting through space at 185 miles per second.
You’re sitting on your bed and you’re travelling the universe
faster than you can ever imagine.
Every millisecond of your life
you’re somewhere new—
so take a deep breath.
You’re going everywhere.

The astronaut’s behind the wheel of ’91 Saturn
(Aristotelian, a machine of all the elements:
silver paint like water, the lingering smell of earth,
a driver of air, an engine of fire),
with quintessence, the road.

I forget which came first: gravel or stardust;
we’re trying to get lost but can’t seem to shake the Big Dipper.
I’ve one hand on the leather and the other on your face;
we’ve parked somewhere by Neptune, cold and blue, always morning.

We should pretend to be real people for a while, waste some precious oxygen;
stop trying to remember we’ve been here before.
Remember that uncharted was the point.

Fingers tip-tapping on keyboards
dance the dance
of dead poets before them.

I used to be afraid of the dark,
but then I discovered the light of the stars.