In the outer reaches

A Quixotic Quest to Mine Asteroids

The Wall Street Journal, 24 April 2012

In the outer reaches of a youthful city whose streets

would kill to sleep, where safety counts on numbers and preys

on sheep, a boy is pushed from the fold to bloody his sheers.

Where she came from or where she would have gone

no one knows, only that she wandered alone

into their neighbourhood, cutting her own straight line

through circles of streetlight, past closed doors

and smacked up whores and shored up newsstands

with barely a crackle. You'd think she was invisible.

You'd think she knew the route by rote. In truth

she was in freefall, her velocity palpably terminal.

What unspent treasures she'd acquired or been given,

though worthless to her, she kept well hidden beneath

her dusty coat and stare. Who'd have guessed they were there?

(c) 2012 Slush Poet