Tell me now.
Was your coming here a secret?

Blue Mars is planted 
and finally breathing 

with icy oceans 
swimming 

and seething  
with sabre toothed fish 

formed by men and fanned
with fins 100 feet long,

lumbering gigawhales breathing
the free Martian air

sounding shallow oceans
to gift the Martians 

“hefty lumps,”
the 10 lb rocks of ambergris

to perfume themselves,
who wouldn’t want this?

Blue Mars is a germ
from the picture postcards 

and paisley placards 
of promise hung 

by the N.A.S.A. years over
for decades

and we are the third iteration, 
after many generations.

Our red Mars was naked
to space, barely holding 

atmosphere to contain
the spectrum we were sending.

Rippling dynamos
of targeted nuclear explosions

liquified the outer core
of the planet to give it

an eclectic magnetic field. 
Then we patiently witnessed

the waters to come and close
the vast canyon rust,

and then the Utopia Planitia 
began to generously seed.

With our help
was a world built from chaos.

Tell me now.
Was your coming here a secret?

I charted a ship to take me
to this lonely place

with my crops, 
to know my peace. 

No one knew the ship’s manifest,
but the menagerie aboard:

mutant alligators, birds with ridiculous
wing spans, and putrescence—

the foul waters of the entire Mississippi 
all borne here for experimentation.

2001—she made contact. 
She found out about my pills by the fistful—

I am rocket bound
for the arid land swept with bullet

storms where the cops beat up
on the good guys, 

where I never made mistakes—
again, she caught me again.

She had said goodbye over and over
again, she said goodbye then.

          Not you, not this 
          any longer.

2010—I traveled on after my work
was done.

I write this report from a window
near Europa, its icy plains hiding

true life 
giving warm waters.

I write this from the vantage
of Jupiter, the king 

among the wanderers
on the hyperspace highway

across the dark matter 
of the Sol system.

           Who are you?    
           Why are you here?

she asked me as I lolled
in our bed.

I charted a ship
to take me to this lonely place

where they can’t hear me scream.