I imagine you cradled inside
the wing of your rocket ship, vacuum
sealed, sheltered from the noise of solar wind.
Remembering our goodbye at the launch-pad
Creases the aging skin around your eyes.

Tears, weightless and buoyant,
Collide with the sputtering, decrepit
valves and cogs
tracking your orbit
through Saturn’s dust.

You bottle them in mason jars, capture each one on fading
fingertips like paper white snowflakes,
Sealing them inside with aluminum twist caps.
You fill each one and let them clutter the windows
like drunken periscopes.

If I could shine a flashlight through these memory
telescopes, black and white 1920s movies would reel
cracked turtle shells on the highway,
Four rabbits, their intestines spoiling on mowed grass,
Synonyms for “stupid” piercing into heart with arrowhead.

    You curl tighter into the spacecraft,
    Breathing uncontrollably, painfully.
    Canines cut into tongue to suppress sobs.
    Folding over naval, knees to forehead,
             The gravity of surrounding, misplaced moons
             pulls you to collision with an asteroid.