By Rane Arroyo
1. The Diaspora Begins
The ships choose different paths.
Mine is littered with broken stars.
One by one, we're swallowed
by an invisible leviathan: distance.
After losing contact with the others,
we float away from the land of
our ghosts. No one is buried in
space, bodies thrown into the black
where cosmic cobwebs catch them.
We've been pushed into this lush
nothingness in the sky. Yes, I wore
a cloud as a crown while herded
onto my ship. Now, shadows spin
all around us, naked prayer wheels.
2. Wandering in the wilderness
means something new between
galaxies. Space doesn't expand or
contract: it just isthink of waves
without seas or shores. We cry out,
¡we are dangling! Mystery has been
smuggled aboard, that ancient virus.
3. Another new planet is found
It rains lead there without
pause. It's purgatory, minus
the purging. It doesn't sink
into our purified zodiac.
This planet is a piñata not yet
saddled, a Big Bang orchid,
old Hell long before religion.
It has seas not for our whales
or mermaids. Its melting skies
cling to flux and flickering.
There's always the question:
do we finally have a home?