You? Your fate was sealed the moment
you set a ring of stones around a fire:
in some Neanderthal night, the collective
tremor of northern species, and global
air circulation pausing a moment
to apprehend change. I’d like to think
the stars, too, clarified in translucent
darkness, that for a moment all
burned blue, looked down
in an earnest convocation.
What to say, human? That generally
by the time a trajectory becomes clear,
it’s essentially completed? That causes
swim in conclusions? Now you know.
Now I know, too. And though
from up here I’m unable to help you,
I will say—pondering your world—
no destination seems so important, no
work trumps my attention like your
gloved hands, tenderness conducted
through latex and scrub brush toward
all those small lives you have ruined.
Perhaps a few decades from now
an interstellar cavalry will arrive—
do-gooder species watching your
accelerating bleed, moved, will pull
you back from the ledge by the x
of your crossed suspenders, will deposit
you and such Earthly life as remains
on a pristine world. Imagine
the pods launching out like bees
from a flaming hive, the furious drones
cooling with distance, and then
the landing—chrome studs among
long grasses, a field wide as Kansas.
Fanciful? Had I been there, human,
I’d have poked the Neanderthal
on the shoulder, tapped my snappish
foot until he handed me that first rock.
Then I’d have clocked him with it.
This poem first appeared in Space Traveler (University of Tampa, 2014).
—
Benjamin S. Grossberg’s books of poetry include My Husband Would (University of Tampa, 2020), winner of the 2021 Connecticut Book Award, and Sweet Core Orchard (University of Tampa, 2009), winner of a Lambda Literary Award. He also wrote the novel, The Spring before Obergefell (University of Nebraska, 2024), which was selected by Percival Everett for the 2023 AWP Award Series James Alan McPherson Prize. Ben is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Hartford.
