My sister lives on an exoplanet
orbiting a different star
a gigantic star filled with
parties and projects
committees and cocktails
a calendar crammed as full as
a drawer of solo socks whose
partners were lost in the laundry
By ten o’clock my sister’s been to the gym,
the grocery store, met friends for coffee
and organized cans for the local foodbank
I live on Kepler-37b
orbiting a low activity star
smaller than Mercury
my favorite day is a day
with nothing on the calendar
Plenty of time to write poems
no one will publish
and sip herb tea in the shade
but my few friends are hitting eighty
heart disease, dementia, diabetes
hover off shore like drizzling fog
soon my planet will be lonely
my biography thin and dull
Listening to the laughter of others
many light years away
I may travel to Kepler-16B
where I will have two shadows,
see two suns set each night
and dance arthritic dances
with dozens of little old ladies
tossing champagne bottles
over stiff shoulders
whooping to Jailhouse Rock
happily joining my extraverted sister.
Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t.
