I did not wait for outerspace to extend its arm to me,

I thrust my face skyward

where no tinted glass could have spared me

where a breathless canvas of black beckoned me close

where I offered my ear, I reached out my matte limbed machine

and snatched a shuttle whole

where the sun would have happily frozen me to death

if I drifted too close.

Laura Fairgrieve

Target

Aim higher than the clod of mud,

the thud in earth that’s swallowed up,

the belly of a rusted can,

the clang of tin, unbalancing,

snails that cling to low flint walls,

the cracking of a hollow shell,

the plum upon a neighbour’s tree,

a hush disturbed within its leaves,

and higher still than startled crows,

slanted attic windows, rows

of chimney stacks, church spires,

tower blocks. Aim higher.

Set sight between the blazing past

and unlit future of a star.

Aim now.

Rachel Rooney

De Profundis

Oh why is heaven built so far,

Oh why is earth set so remote?

I cannot reach the nearest star

That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,

One round monotonous of change;

Yet even she repeats her tune

Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter’d fire

Of stars, or sun’s far-trailing train,

But all my heart is one desire,

And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,

Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;

I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,

And catch at hope.

Christina Rossetti

Sky Ladder

after Cai Guo-Qiang

Quick, before the sun

rises, get up one more

time, my grandmother.

The artist won’t mind

if you borrow

his sky ladder.

Place your foot

on the bottom rung

and keep climbing,

even though

you’re a skeleton

with a broken neck

from falling downstairs

on Guy Fawkes night.

The ladder is wrapped

in gunpowder, and he’s

lit the touchpaper.

Your bones are ascending

firecrackers.

You’re half a kilometer

high now, halfway

to the universe,

my joy-gardener.

I hope you find a

garden with rich black

soil for your black

roses, hybrids like you –

half white half Indian,

half woman half flower,

their roots twined

through your skull,

you who were transplanted

among the pale roses

of a British family.

Your skin now a mix

of photons and soot.

What do you find up there?

Is there a hothouse?

Are there alien hands

with deft brushes

pollinating stars?

Remember how

your tomatoes kept

yielding more planets?

Are there constellations

of exotic fruit now

you’ve reached the top?

Have you gone back

enough in space-time

to when you were alive?

The ladder is charred,

the hot air balloon

that held it up

is about to collapse.

The explosions are over.

Cai showers his head

with champagne, as his

100-year-old granny

watches on her cell phone.

Did you see it? He asks,

did you hear the whoosh,

the rat-tat-tat

at the starry door?

You can go back

to sleep now, he tells her.

Go back to sleep,