THE PERFECT PLANET

In my mind we’ve found you

A million times —

The brilliant aquamarine planet,

Marbled as Earth but twice as gaseous,

With seas deep as the Mariana Trench

On the cusp of an explosion of life,

Orbiting twin Suns double its size.

The ice planet with a frosty ocean,

Teeming with flora and fauna. It spins

Ceaselessly around its scarlet sun,

Seven pearled moons twirling around it

In an endless pirouette.

Around a gargantuan vermillion sun,

An emerald planet with a trio of moons

Thick with forest and small lakes —

That waterfall taller than the Niagara,

Pooling into a salty sea of azure.

The city of swamps blanketed by

Moon-sized balloon creatures drifting

Serenely in the sky, drinking sun rays

And raining microorganisms to the ground,

Fueling an ecosystem rivaling ours.

The rocky moon with the underground sea,

Full of bioluminescent life, exuding

Ultraviolet light, spawning caves of kelp

And sentient ferns, spores traveling north

To the surface, to the gas giant’s light.

The ultramarine planet, scattered with

Painted white swirls decorating its sky.

Lush green hills and its ocean, full of life.

Now it has become a desert, cold and dry.

The perfect planet, dead and destroyed.

I sit and stare at the sky, and back at us,

Dying as our barren planet lays to rest.

There are those who say we deserve it,

While others demand a right to live

On another planet, another world.

But we’ve had our chance.

Let the rest have their own perfect planets

Without us.

I destroy the key

That summons our space ark from orbit.

--

First appeared in Apex Magazine, 31 May 2016