Flying through the chill magnet

of midnight,

this strange space ricochets between the stars,

hallways piled high with the darkness

that seeps in under doors, around pipes and wires.

In the cargo bays, fretful on their high beds,

the sick, whom we shepherd

through the shards of night,

dream their jittery dreams, unconscious,

scissor-step from light to nightmare

and back again.

An old wife sits unseeing,

in her usual padded chair,

between his bed and the black window.

A lined notebook

in her lap reiterates her simple and unerring calculus—

of him, of anything, there will never again

be quite enough. What can she do

but sit?

Not everyone

lands on a warm and happy planet,

the automatic doors clanging open,

greeted by family in a pink haze,

taken to the car in a wheelchair,

and home,

and dinner, and a bowl of peonies.