Beyond the moon, beyond planet blue 

and planet red, each day further 

from the sun she floats out toward



the empty dark of X. Having done 

what she was sent out years before 

to do, she gave up sending even



the faintest signals back to earth, 

to bend instead her shattered wings 

across her breast for warmth. It is



late, he knows, and knows it will only 

go on getting later. He shifts alone 

in the late November light before



her grave, as so often he has done 

these past five years, to try 

and finish what he knows to be



unfinished business and must remain 

that way: this one-way dialogue 

between the self, and--in her absence--



the mother in himself. Epilogue, perhaps, 

to what one man might do to heal 

the shaken ghost which must at last admit



just how many years ago she logged off 

on her journey. So that now, as darkness 

drops about him like some discarded coat,



old but useful, such as his mother used 

to wear, he takes it to him, much as 

she did, to ward against the cold.