STS-27
lights and shadows / the optic nature of damage begs
to be both wave and particle / an integral part
of a human timeline / and simultaneously the single point
where the impact occurs / a tile cracked / twisted
hot metal fizzes into salty waves / dragging down
whatever charred remnants still cling / damage
cannot be reflection / nor shadow / it is the open
wound / the astronaut falling
4 days, 9 hours, 5 minutes and 37 seconds. Mission Control says everything is perfect; everything is soft; everything is brilliant; everything is the way candles consume themselves to make us light.
weightless / injured / your
quiet / is unsure if it can bear gravity
again / but it begins to pull / this short reprieve
ends / with you shuddering / your skin
burning / alight with friction / air against air / inhale
the moment you know that / death is only becoming
then you land / furious / alive / unfurled upon
the soil / both fractured and intact / screaming
And also not screaming. What does it mean to become a meteor? That fire stands-in for our desire to return home? A meteor is a question like furious or alive it wants to understand screaming. And for what? Damaged ablative sheets. The fortuity of a well-placed antenna, melted. An exposed belly burning and diving toward cold water. Just think about a body reduced to these composite parts. It is so heavy
with every light it contains / remember
this quiet / remember the way gravity
keeps trying to kill us / the way this earth
tries to bring us home / mission control—
this is my heart on fire / inhale
the moment you know that
you are going to die
Upon examination after landing, it was determined that over 700 of the shuttle’s ablative plates had incurred damage during reentry. One plate had disintegrated entirely. Little islands named Atlantis
disappearing beneath the waves.
Paxton Grey (he/they) is a non-binary, neurodivergent software developer living in Virginia. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Sundog Lit, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Pithead Chapel, Empty Mirror, and elsewhere. They can be found on twitter @PaxWrites.
Danielle Rose is the author of AT FIRST & THEN (Black Lawrence Press) and THE HISTORY OF MOUNTAINS (Variant Lit 2021). Her work can be found at Palette, Hobart, and The Shallow Ends.
