Vast

I was reading about exoplanets, places where there might be life,
places with open seating, place settings made of iron and clay,
where no one’s heart is closed because no such thing
as hearts, & not a dry eye on this wandering orb
because they see with something else,
not stalks but more like crickets:
their viewing devices residing
in their legs. Where a bride
might witness a trillion

 

lightning strikes before she cuts the cake. Some are ejected
from the planetary systems in which they were formed.
Some are called nomads. Some are free-floating.
Some are rogue. It’s believed the Milky Way
has billions. Exoplanets, that is.
Starless ones. Sunless ones.
Ones they call orphans.
Ones that look nothing
like ours, like us.         

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Martha Silano’s fifth full-length poetry collection, Gravity Assist, appeared from Saturnalia Books in 2019. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, and the Best American Poetry series, among others. Honors include the North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize and the Cincinnati Review’s Robert and Adele Schiff Award. She teaches at Bellevue College, Seattle’s Hugo House, and as a Poet in the Schools in Skagit County, Washington.