Tuesday, July 14, 2015

A Plutonic Love

Today the NASA spacecraft
New Horizons

finished a nine year-
and three-billion-mile-long journey
of the dwarf planet

with enough fuel
to take its equivalent
of a glimpse

for the humans in command

and now makes
its journey home

having avoided deadly rocks
the size
of a grain of rice.

The collected data
will still take 16 months
to transfer

but thank the heavens
that NASA

has the wherewithal
to livestream its homecoming

and post a picture
of its copper
heart-adorned surface

to Instagram.

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.