Gretchen Rockwell

October

​after Edgar Allan Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”

All the leaves crash from the trees and
crinkle up in a brilliant blur. Darkness
comes earlier now. The twilights and
nights are a little cooler, a little longer. Decay
crouches in every shadow. I scroll Twitter and
pull a maple leaf to pieces. It is the
most vibrant it has ever been. Red
screams from the screen. Vitriol. Death
threats. So much anger it cannot be held
in one heart. My feed scrolls on, illimitable
and exhausting. I cannot fight for dominion.
The light is changing. A hawk soars over
my head. I think about giving up on it all.

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Five Thousand Sols Later

​a golden shovel after Opportunity’s “last words,” starting with a line from Tracy K. Smith

This message going out to all of space... My
battered body finally rests, low on battery

but sending this signal anyway. The last sun is
setting on me. O chariot of the sun, swing low— 

as now the wind blows dust into my joints and
fills the gaps. Slowly                 breaking down. It's

I                      —no one will find my stardust. No way of getting

song to wake up. The world's —sleeping                          —dark

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Gretchen Rockwell is a queer poet currently living in Scotland. Xe is the author of the chapbook Lexicon of Future Selves (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press) and two microchapbooks; xer work has most recently appeared in AGNI, Cotton Xenomorph, perhappened mag, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. Gretchen enjoys writing poetry about gender, history, myth, science, space, and unusual connections – find xer on Twitter at @daft_rockwell.