Spaced Out

When I dream, I swim around
in the vast silver pot of the galaxy,
inside a cauldron of constellations, the planets bobbing
as though they are dunk inside a deep stew.

The twinkling stars are space confetti,
the sky a cosmic pink spun-sugar,
the comets fizzing like purple popping candy
and opening like star flowers.

Mercury is a cratered smile,
Venus a witch melting in an olive-green forest,
Mars a desert of spilt rum,
Earth a sphere of blue glass and white smokestacks.

The scents are silver, a smidgeon of space dust
mixed with the moon’s magnificent metal.
The sun’s glassy glitter on my tongue.
This galaxy feels endless so I settle in.

In this galaxy, I’m a floating piece of lace in a nonstop flight,
spreading fingers through lavender clouds,
drifting through Jupiter’s red dot in weightless awe
while space bells ring like celestial chimes.

Neptune’s wind crackles in my ears,
asteroids bash together and explode
into small rocky corpses. Amethyst nebulas hum closer,
stardust coats my eyelashes like snow.

Distant meteoroids spiral and cartwheel against
an inky backdrop. Orion lies down before me,
a starry paperweight, awaiting my basket of wishes.
The white lace that was me turns luminous silver.

I’m careful to sidestep black holes and sneaky space suction,
the smoke of exploding stars and their dark suffocation.
All of space shies away from the sun, gives him room,
a bold island, a fiery orange loner.

There are space webs that entangle, midnight blue and enticing,
and other galaxies that beckon with blinking gold fingers.
Pluto is a dreamer with an underworld of spilled treasure,
but he sets a mousetrap for greedy hands.

When I dream, I’m a tightrope walker on gold space threads,
up high over the aqua mist and protostars,
the moon brightly blinking as I balance the galaxy.
Time travel is easy as a nursery rhyme, cold spots lightyears behind me.

My heels dig into Saturn’s rings,
iceskating as a dreamer, skipping from
icy rock to icy rock,
weightless and childlike.

When I wake, I’m back inside this spaceship,
enclosed by metal walls and unbreakable windows.
I can drift but hit the walls too roughly, bounce.
The space scene outside is untouchable, far away, like a boat from the beach.

We start our descent, earth-bound,
colorful space dissolving
melting memories of freedom
as we grasp the controls that fail us.