On the Derelict Wreckage in Space
Garrett Caroll
Those aren’t just the hulls of the capitol ships
and freighters on next-day delivery voyages.
They’re the women and the men
who risked their lives to bring us everyday necessities,
who drove through space on changing routes
and dodged and skimmed through the asteroid belt,
barely making it to their destinations,
until one day the luck of their lives ran out
and one small speck of rock speared straight through
the hull of their ship, prompting an emergency evacuation
to a random set of undocumented coordinates. They’re lost
and unable to return, their signals died out
a hundred years ago, the distance between the beacon lights
the companies always preface with “at will employment.”
