Space Junk – Janet Lees

Space junk

‘And do you think people are talking

about you on the TV?’ I croak ‘No’,

throat stripped by the grey snake they sent

down to suck the deathwish out of me.

He could be a newsreader, this ironic doctor

shielded by a desk; frost moustache aligned

with postbox mouth. Red when shut,

black when open. Reflecting my spectrum.

A gnarled part of me wants to ram

something too big in that black hole

and watch it fill with red. But more of me

is carried on Valium contrails, ghosted out

against a veil of dead stars that still shine.

‘And do you think the washing machine

is a spaceship?’ I wish I did think that.

I think I could be one myself –

a metal vessel spun across the universe,

burning up on this re-entry.