White Dwarf
Shuttles return to earth
survived by screws,
hatch covers & the contents
of human stomachs.
Space is made up of our spare parts.
Islands carved from water
droplets hovering above a blue dot.
Humanity condensed
into footage of a tin can.
Bolts the same size
as stars we see at night.
The obituary of a planet begins
with what it leaves behind.
We are survived by the parts
we needed at one time.
*
Shannon Austin (she/her) is a writer from Baltimore, MD, with an MFA in poetry from UNLV. Her work has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Rust + Moth, Nimrod Journal, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere.
