poem
Volume 29, Number 3

Astronomy

How many sister Earths are possible,
near sister suns, at sister distances?

According to astrophysicists, a lot. Tons.
And some of them with sister moons that pull

their sister tides from high to low again,
so maybe there are sister whales in space, and gulls,

and sharks out there a hundred shapes like ours,
who knows? And even aliens like us.

I wonder what they do about their oil—
that un-bottled genie—since it must spill,

must paint their skies in smoke, making it hard
for telescopes to see. Impossible

to avoid that. The price of intelligence.
Or maybe we aren’t like sisters after all.


—Rob Carney