I didn’t want to be an alien invader. On Mars I’d be the alien invading, though it turns out nothing lived up there back then. Plus it took nine weightless months in a cramped interplanetary ship not much bigger than a car. I’d never make it, stuck that long in outer space. And land on Mars? I had no desire to be in such a place. Everything red. Sky, dirt, rocks. Everything. Nothing. A frozen wasteland. I couldn’t bear to look back at Earth—from Mars just a distant dot. Why leave home, colonize a world that’s dead? We needed a backup planet, “life insurance for life as a whole,” as a rich man said. But not everyone could flee a failing Earth. Who got on the starship with the practiced billionaires? Who had money for the one-way fare? The ticket buying multi-millionaires. Once upon a time
This poem first appeared in Listening to Mars (Cornerstone Press, 2024).
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Former Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Sally Ashton is a writer, teacher, and editor of DMQ Review, an online journal featuring poetry and art. Author of five books including most recently Listening to Mars, she specializes in brief forms across genres. One of her poems is headed to the Moon and beyond in 2025. www.sallyashton.com
