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      December 2, 2018InSightElizabeth Coyle

      landing should be spectacular.
      In truth, the hardest part
       
      and soft, still, as if ours
      but not. As in, goodbye
       
      but only after the fact.
      Like the constant gnaw
       
      of days into rust. Do you
      sing to yourself on your birthday?
       
      Earth on Mars is called
      mars. Pick up mars
       
      and run it through
      your fingers. Imagine
       
      a little boy still excited
      about Martians. Still
       
      excited about Earthlings.
      Still scared of the vacuum.
       
      Tell him how far the sun is
      from him. From you
       
      and the mars on your shoes.
      Tell him his tomorrow
       
      is still further than yours. Tell him
      it might not come at all.
       
      Tell him you can’t see
      the future. You don’t
       
      have to tell him it’s dark.
      He already knows that.
       
      Crawl in circles. The boy
      will wait, watching.

      from Poets Respond

      Elizabeth Coyle

      “As I watched the news coverage of NASA’s InSight landing on mars (something I normally would be extremely excited about), I realized just how jaded how jaded I’d become towards the news, both good and bad. Everything had begun to feel like a moot point. This poem is a little blunt and a little hopeless because hopefully, if I can get those feelings into a poem, I can get them out of the rest of me. There’s still so much left to do.”

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