The starry path by Diem Okoye
41 lines
Issue 7 (Spring 2025)
There used to be an astronaut
within this very spacesuit. And if this
isn't enough, he comes back
through the radio, reminding
me it's impossible to forget
his mission. Like the year
he first set foot on Mars,
feeling stranded on the red planet,
with nowhere to explore,
no starship, no fellow astronauts
to bring him back. And if this
isn't enough, his transmissions
bring me back to the year
when I was in a rover. Another
late night operation, and I'm another traveler,
younger, entranced by the Martian terrain
I used to map, mapping me still
which is to say I'm still here
in the desolate expanse, melancholic drunk
on interstellar dust and no cosmic map.
It is not the dust storms
that make him feel vulnerable,
not the thin atmosphere
that makes him cold. It's my pursuit
to venture farther & farther
into the galaxy, the fact
that I have bypassed every waypoint
he has charted that makes him feel
like a lost star. Has it always
been like this? Most nights
it's serene, others the soft glow
of a distant quasar next door. Ours
could be seen through the void, out there
in the astronomer's eye pressed
to the telescope. It's a star traveler's thing
and I wanted so much of this
to be two explorers in love
with a world they can't possibly
conquer, but carry nonetheless
like a navigational star map to have
when they need a little direction.
