SCI-FI
There will be no edges, but curves.
Clean lines pointing only forward.
History, with its hard spine & dog-eared
Corners, will be replaced with nuance,
Just like the dinosaurs gave way
To mounds and mounds of ice.
Women will still be women, but
The distinction will be empty. Sex,
Having outlived every threat, will gratify
Only the mind, which is where it will exist.
For kicks, we’ll dance for ourselves
Before mirrors studded with golden bulbs.
The oldest among us will recognize that glow—
But the word sun will have been re-assigned
To a Standard Uranium-Neutralizing device
Found in households and nursing homes.
And yes, we’ll live to be much older, thanks
To popular consensus. Weightless, unhinged,
Eons from even our own moon, we’ll drift
In the haze of space, which will be, once
And for all, scrutable and safe.
CIENCIA FICCIÓN
No habrá bordes sino curvas.
Líneas limpias apuntando siempre hacia adelante.
La Historia, con su rígida columna y sus esquinas
Gastadas será sustituida con matices,
Igual que los dinosaurios dieron paso
A montones y montones de hielo.
Las mujeres seguirán siendo mujeres, pero
Su cualidad estará vacía. El sexo,
Tras haber sobrevivido a todas las amenazas, dará placer
Sólo a la mente, y sólo en ella existirá.
Para entretenernos, bailaremos con nosotros mismos
Ante espejos decorados con bombillas doradas.
El más anciano de entre nosotros reconocerá ese brillo,
Pero la palabra sol habrá sido reasignada
A un dispositivo Estándar Neutralizador de Uranio
Localizado en hogares y asilos.
Y sí, viviremos mucho más tiempo, gracias
Al consenso general. Ingrávidos, desquiciados,
A eones de nuestra propia luna, vagaremos
En la neblina espacial, que será de una vez
Por todas, clara y segura.
MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF STARS
1.
We like to think of it as parallel to what we know,
Only bigger. One man against the authorities.
Or one man against a city of zombies. One man
Who is not, in fact, a man, sent to understand
The caravan of men now chasing him like red ants
Let loose down the pants of America. Man on the run.
Man with a ship to catch, a payload to drop,
This message going out to all of space.…Though
Maybe it’s more like life below the sea: silent,
Buoyant, bizarrely benign. Relics
Of an outmoded design. Some like to imagine
A cosmic mother watching through a spray of stars,
Mouthing yes, yes as we toddle toward the light,
Biting her lip if we teeter at some ledge. Longing
To sweep us to her breast, she hopes for the best
While the father storms through adjacent rooms
Ranting with the force of Kingdom Come,
Not caring anymore what might snap us in its jaw.
Sometimes, what I see is a library in a rural community.
All the tall shelves in the big open room. And the pencils
In a cup at Circulation, gnawed on by the entire population.
The books have lived here all along, belonging
For weeks at a time to one or another in the brief sequence
Of family names, speaking (at night mostly) to a face,
A pair of eyes. The most remarkable lies.
2.
Charlton Heston is waiting to be let in. He asked once
[politely.
A second time with force from the diaphragm. The third time,
He did it like Moses: arms raised high, face an apocryphal white.
Shirt crisp, suit trim, he stoops a little coming in,
Then grows tall. He scans the room. He stands until I gesture,
Then he sits. Birds commence their evening chatter. Someone fires
Charcoals out below. He’ll take a whiskey if I have it. Water if I don’t.
I ask him to start from the beginning, but he goes only halfway back.
That
