Jackleen Holton
LIFE ON MARS
Our Curiosity has found organic molecules on Mars,
the building blocks of life, in a crater lake on Mars.
An app on my phone confirms the fiery light
among the stars, the dying and already-dead, is Mars.
But the pre-dawn moon’s a thin, white blade, the firmament
as lonely as its ever been. That tiny flame is Mars.
I once lived on a street named for Mars, the god of war.
Each night, another yellow window blazed with rage, on Mars.
And the other day, Jesus waved a red ball cap as his jacked-up truck
sped past, now that Main street’s changed its name to Mars.
Humankind, let’s build another ark and sail to that red orb
as soon as science tells us we can live on Mars.
Yes, in time we’ll wreck that, too, and then the next frontier
we colonize. Because we’re all children of the war god, Mars.
But scientists have discovered in the russet Martian dirt,
not proof of life just yet, but something carbon-based, on Mars.
And this candlelight before the day breaks into shards, a bit of hope
is what I need right now, even if it has to come from Mars.
Jackleen Holton‘s poems have been published in journals including North American Review, Poet Lore, and RHINO Poetry, online venues such as Rattle’s Poets Respond, Poets Reading the News, and Mobius: A Journal of Social Change, and the anthology Not My President.
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