Halfway North

Rising out of the galaxies

as though she’s just woken up, mane in a tangle,

unsure of what she did the night before –

what was in those astral drinks,

whose boots are under her bed,

what stars will be birthed hence,

their light showing up in the lenses long after

the humans have exterminated themselves

and their prying telescopes, but not soon enough.

Fuck.

She should be more choosy,

what if she’s picked up some kind of civilization?

There’s no easy cream for that,

once taken hold they’re hard to get rid of

and she knows from book club that Earth

is in a fever dream, oceans slipping past beaches

and icebergs sagging, desert skin cracking

and mountains brown and dirty where

snow should be.

Still, it’s lonely in the universe,

so much dark matter across billions of light years,

when a rogue winter constellation with a crossbow

and a plan for extinction sidles up to you,

it’s easy to get taken in.

No matter, she shakes her mane

and sets out again, her back to Euclid’s eye,

black holes in her wake.