By Kate Gaskin

Whatever was there has gone
         to three and a half billion years
                        of dust. On Mars

a rover picks up a rock
           and turns it over
                  in a river delta webbed

with dried arteries cauterized
             by the sun. Daughter,
                          who lived for only an hour,

I too search for you
           in the most barren places,
                           a vein that rolls before

a needle, a dawn that breaks
             dim and drawn. I wish for you
                        an emerald canopy,

sapphire water, a world
            where belief is a fact
                         that can be held

in my palm like a stone.
           Here on Earth, you disappear
                        star–ash, sun–soot, moon–glow

while somewhere above
            in the red star of another planet,
                         a robot measures

ancient silt into a vial
             for human hands to touch
                           with wonder. What do I do now

                           with all this love?

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Kate Gaskin is the author of Forever War, winner of the Pamet River Prize (YesYes
Books, 2020). Her poems have appeared in journals such as Guernica, Pleiades,
and The Southern Review, and her work has been anthologized in the 2019 Best
American Nonrequired Reading. She has received support from the Sewanee
Writers’ Conference and the Vermont Studio Center.