Area 51
David Barber
Even with the device turned off and tombed
in concrete, we are still haunted by ghosts
of histories that are not our own,
remembering cosmonauts fêted through
New York in blizzards of ticker-tape;
or the launching of Apollo 20
on that last fatal mission to the moon;
the rusted gantries of a rocket age
gone the way of zeppelins; memories
of von Braun’s winged and shiny spacecraft
docking with the Big Wheel before setting out
for the red planet and adventure;
and once, the firing of a vast Space Gun,
spotting a lonely spark sailing outwards
across a sky filled with stars.
