Today's poem is by William Trowbridge

Voyage to Outer Space
       

It used to fire up the imagination:
Trip to the Moon, Flash Gordon,
Star Trek, 2001: a Space Oddessy.

But after Armstrong's 'one small step,'
it's begun to look as if we're surrounded
by billions of vacant lots: the moon,

the nine planets, and Webb Telescope
notwithstanding, the cosmos, barren
as that acreage in the old Florida real estate

scam. Who would want to settle on
one of those year-round-hostile outbacks?
We do, developers say. Already, there's talk

of lunar hotels and anti-drift tethers
for zero-gravity sex. But maybe those lots
weren't always vacant. Maybe their inhabitants

did to their planet what we're doing to ours.
Maybe they've left a trail of mayhem
throughout the galaxy. Maybe we're them.

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Copyright © 2024 William Trowbridge All rights reserved
from Birmingham Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission