Laying a New Road

Mars.

Crisscrossed with roads

paved red, their flagstones

covered with iron and rust.

Circles, concentric and broken by

lines radiating from

the desolate city center

to the outskirts of a crimson

metropolis once inhabited

by little green men—maybe.

I doubt I shall be able to go,

but one day my children might,

reluctantly lifting off

from our beloved

Mother Earth, into space

to Mars millions of miles away.

Mars, O Red Planet,

so close and yet so far,

inviting but so brutal,

let us land and set foot

upon your ferrous surface

to take another leap.

Nicholas Garino