Cosmic Housekeeping
Poem - by Gretchen Tessmer
there’s so much cosmic dust
cluttering up
the corners of distant galaxies
and oh, how dirty are
the faces of Jupiter’s moons
the Comets™ that you sent
swirling through
the oft-bent universe
are not an efficient
cleaning tool
(I’d try to get my money back, if I were you)
and, to be honest, the stars—
those most glorious
and incandescent
light fixtures, well
they seem to be rusting out
starting a spring-yellow
darkening to a summer-gold
before the gilding flakes off
revealing a scarlet-red
of madness and mayhem
and guess what?
right after the warranty runs out…
the damn things explode!
and it’s all rust and ashes
entropy and dust bunnies
filling up black holes—
the matted fabric and pocket lint of deep space
I’m just saying
it probably wouldn’t hurt
to take a broom to the place