The size of bent edged metal lodged and twisting
inside her intestines is unknowable, to watch
me fall to one knee for the fifteenth time, blue
red, gold, and phosphorous white
licks of flame bursting from my suits seams.
Break glass, air driven out. Still burn. Chemical
blaze. Extinguisher plumes filling containment.
Still burn. Over radios screams and crackling tears.
I'm okay, I'm okay!
I can't help you!
Please, listen to me. I'm okay.
Days that pass and months without incident.
When we arrive at the colony station
the stories we will tell. Work continues. Monitors
blink and machines whir our songs.
Card games and reading her to sleep.
Nights up with me when I could not.
Check in, check out. Cautious smiles.
Loose bodies and minds. Guests, invitations.
Space walks and communiques.
Drops to planets and moons and back.
Stay aboard, take care of the ship while she's gone.
Let go. Another job lost. I don't understand
what happened.
I can do this. Don't worry. I can-
You have to try.
I can-
Alarms drown thoughts, seals clip into place.
Over radios urgent commands conflict.
Get inside.
This time is different. The thump of
foot thick steel beams seat to their cylinders.
The whoosh of air gone. Through smoke dimmed porthole,
her eyebrows broken and streaming,
a hand across her mouth. This time is different.
Please, listen to me. I'm okay. Don't-
The lights turn off. Extinguishers plume.
I cannot see through the fire light filled helmet, you.
Days pass. The lights are gone and
the remains of myself charred and
heat grafted to what's left of the suit.
I can't help you. I love you.
Crackles through
the radio link.
I know. I love you.
Before it dies alongside the main lights and
the emergency system's too.
I forgive her the blast door ever fallen locked.
The ship abandoned for too many memories
trapped inside. Too many smiles and footfalls logged.
Too many meals and doors and machine sounds we knew.
The pain of helplessness that must have tore through her
to see the blaze rise from being
without an answer
arrests me anew each year
removed from finding the outer seal lock
against containment, turning the hard key
and blowing myself into the depths of space.
Never again
to tap "I love you" in Morse on the blackened porthole window.
The empty ship still turns in space somewhere
full of memories and aches, scorches, and empty pods.
A keepsake floating in a drawer with drapes.
Perhaps a shoe and a few keys to nothing.
What system it's found
or salvage impound or
if it's fallen into the belly of a star,
no one knows.
Across the reaches, alone on my station, cobbled together
from other ships and wrecks I've come across,
through deaths and births I cannot say,
I still comb signals now and then and smile,
a bit of ash drifting from my cheek.
Once in a while the noise resolves and
I see a picture of her content and shining face.
Brush away the spark and adjust a sleeve's clasp.
We are loved.
We are home.
