As my cosmology fades, Tim’s
forms like a birthing star and brightens.
My illuminations go no further
than: on a dull day powderbarks
glow like conscience. Carnaby’s
cockatoos fly back and forth
uncertain as the barometer.
Brightness forces similes. And we
know about them. Once
outside the earth’s atmosphere
there’s no holding Tim back.
He knows the order of the planets
without a mnemonic, backwards.
He is already travelling beyond them.
An asteroid belt is no hindrance.
His new, habitable planets—
Leed, Watar, Vilantar, and Britar—
have the sulphuric yellow
clouds of Venus, the redness of Mars,
the basic lack of atmosphere
on his favourite ‘inner planet’,
Mercury. Mercury—days
of conflagration, nights of annihilating
cold. The extremities define
his planets, creation: the body
has no limits. In space you can breathe.
His—my—cosmos.