Dangerous Fission

He was of two minds:
a Janus child,
like severed Geminis attached
to separate skies.

Climb aboard the Argo, cornfield boy!
You’ll see the great Pleiades themselves,
the crisp, untwinkling swirl of Andromeda,
the death of suns point blank.

He considered, shrugged, looked wistfully at the sky,
sifted a clump of rich, black soil through his fingers,
scanned a field of August cornstalks higher than he could reach,
then took a breath, sighed, looked at the sky again:

And bade the Earth goodbye.   |   And opted to remain.

A pilot— starweary — hesitated at the drive
as the Argo met the atmosphere at a combustible descent,
and Earth, less indecisively, reclaimed her own:
from ashes to ashes to the high plains of Kansas.

Blank eyes disbelieving, he watched cold, grey metal turn to cinnabar.

Eyes upturned against the night, he put his arm around his son and made the same old wish on a shooting star.