You glide through the airless airlock
with your breath rasping in your ears,
As the beam from your headlamp waits
to fade in the massed darkness…
You rasp through the useless airlock
with your breath sounding in your ears,
Your headlamp beam fades under
the mass of waiting darkness
when you weave through the drifting
debris of a dead crew…
Every breath you take through the soundless
airlock rasps in your ears,
And the gliding mass darkens your headlamp,
As debris drifts into a weaving path
leading to the crew…
Where you bump into her dead face –
You shove the face away,
Pushing a path through the massed debris
picked out in your headlamp,
Soundlessly screaming as you hang on
for the dead airlock…
Once you’ve fled to the safe sunshine of a planet
you’ll love and touch a nice next-door girl –
But you’ll never want to look up at the starlit sky
Again
S.J. Higbee is currently busy working on her science fiction novel “Dying for Space” — in between writing poems and almost anything else she can think of…
9 Responses to “POST-SALVAGE STRESS SYNDROME • by S.J. Higbee”
Comments
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May 13th, 2009 at 2:33 am
I wasn’t too enamoured by the repetition, but this is a very strong, goose-bumpy story.
The last stanza was excellent and full of pathos.
A four from me.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Nothing in this poem works.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Nice bit of scifi/horror here.
–dj
May 13th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
How can “breath rasp” in an airlessness, or is this a Cory Doctorow construction? Not really grabbing me in.
May 13th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I read this three times. Very creepy.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
The rasping breathe had me flummoxed for a while.
I’m assuming the narrator’s in an airless spaceship, but wearing a spacesuit.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Absolutely, Paul!
Thank you for your comments, folks. Always useful to have some feedback…
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:32 am
Brian Epstein managed Billy J. ,
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:16 am
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