A Long Journey to Earth

We dropped out of warp near Andromeda,

In cold black—every speck a galaxy,

Radiant heat coupled to the cabin oxygen

From our cooling Alcubierre.

Your gaze sparked memory

Of shedding your EV suit,

From our first planet in NGC 2403,

And bare skin smooth as a neutron star.

My thoughts around you like trillions

Of pieces of Saturn's rings;

Your body on me as Venus's atmosphere:

A blanket of heat and chemical art.

My burning finger tips,

Gliding like comets across

Your cheek to your neck,

Approaching a fast-thumping pulsar.

We pushed through the universe

Embodying the Lorentz force,

In the direction of the electric,

Pulling us together, the magnetic;

Finding I want you in the way

A tokamak compresses hot plasma,

While your lips moved on me like

A nebula, darkly bright in slow formation.

Remember witnessing the power of fusing iron,

100 billion Celsius, in the supernova

Of the NGC 3109 blue supergiant—

Your mind’s eye like the storm on Jupiter.

But after twenty million parsecs,

And enriched with cosmic self-awareness,

I find you are my Earth, the gravity well I want

To slide deep inside, and remain.