Somewhere Floating in Space is a Gold-Plated Record
that’s never been played. Etched with humanity’s best:
whale songs and spit-bubbling babies and the brainwaves
of a woman in love they say sound like fireworks.
A scientist-curated, squeaky clean first impression
should alien life stumble upon it before Earth.
Imagine their disappointment
if they followed the coordinates to our stinking planet
hemorrhaging ozone, space trash and Starlink satellites
tracing their own orbits through a shroud of smog.
If I were in charge of writing the music of humanity,
I would include our messiest: the wild animal cry
in the dark of a mother after receiving that call
from the hospital. Someone’s scream unhinged
into the ocean’s churning, blue void. Phlegm
bubbling in an infected lung, cracking knees,
the wet-leaf smacking and unsticking
of skin on our bellies when making clumsy love.
Then I would record over any other couples’ kisses
Sagan staged on tape with one of our own –
our meeting lips ringing true as real crystal.
I would add the radio static sound of your breath
in my ear, my fingers through your hair
like wind through woods.
Finally, I would press our names into the vinyl
in braille. Let the aliens know our sound
like a scent. Sure, it’s selfish.
But if I have any say in what is the very best
this world can offer, my answer is the song
of our shared silence. Besides, who cares?
Sagan is dead and the sun will swallow our world
long before anyone else can raise a stiff finger in protest
and there’s no sound in space anyway.
