Trash Picker on Mars

by Gene Twaronite

In the dim time before dawn

the woman clamped her metal

fingers over a beer bottle.

Her buckets overflowing with

litter from a dying world,

she sat and stared at the

alien landscape of asphalt.

The stars had all faded

except for the one red light

of Mars still defying the sun.

The woman smiled at the

mythical planet now

defrocked of its canals and

green men by Carl Sagan

and the Legion of Reason.

But still she dreamed.

In her electric cart she glided

over the red-gold deserts

of ancient Barsoom—

past the fairy towers

of Grand Canal and the

monoliths of Helium where

a once great race of Martians

lived, played and died—

filling the canyons of

Valles Marineris with the

excess of their empty lives.

Out of habit she picked up a

fluted green shard, then

laughed and flung it along

with her buckets into the

trash heap of lost Martians.

Through the dark grottoes of

Great Rift Valley she roved to

the shores of Mare Sirenum,

whose salty crust reminded her

of past ruins and distant times

when she could still cry.

For a moment she stared at the

sun, weak and small as it

rose above Olympus Mons,

igniting her in a ruddy glow.

She was the Princess of Mars

and there were still a few

unhatched eggs inside her.

And at the edge of

Candor Chasm she

bared her heart to the

silent, scouring winds.

Then into the dawn

she drove to begin her

new race of Martians.