Middle Generations: On Reading Keats, The Deputy Chief Medic Deletes a Love Letter from the Geologist, a Past Sweetheart
T.D. WALKER

​"And stars are anything but constant.  They sometimes explode, and I don't want that kind of love, thank you very much.  Please keep mine as solid as a rock."  -- Dr. Pamela Gay, Astronomy Cast, episode 520 "Transients: What They Are and Why They Matter, Part 2"
 
What were you thinking about that morning                                      or else
when you told me you wondered if we                                               to hear
had become if not a star then a body                                                   unrest, awake
lovers on other planets had taken as a sign?                                         to feel its fall and swell
Still in bed, you worried we were breaking apart                                ripening
solid loves, holding together lovers who should have                          stedfast, still
parted.  I said we're too small, too fast to be visible.                            upon
You knew that. We're not a star, not even star-like.                           gazing: the mask
It's like when, on Earth, someone proposed                                        human,
stripping Venus of its clouds, its luminosity.                                       moving,
Pushing it into an Earth-like solar day.  Maybe                                  patient.
no one would think of it as a lover's star then.                                    apart
We tend to think of everything as bodies, don't we?                          not lone,
You as human.  Me as rocks in space, and even they                          bright star--
                                                            fall apart.
 
 
 
Phrases in the right column were taken from John Keats' “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art”

lost archive 2
fabio sassi

T.D. Walker is the author of Small Waiting Objects (CW Books, 2019). Her poems and stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Web Conjunctions, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, Luna Station Quarterly, and elsewhere. She draws on both her grounding in literary studies and her experience as a computer programmer in writing poetry and fiction. https://www.tdwalker.net

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​Fabio Sassi makes photos and acrylics putting a quirky twist to his subjects. Sometimes he employs an unusual perspective that gives a new angle of view using what is hidden, discarded or considered to have no worth by the mainstream. Fabio lives in Bologna, Italy. His work can be viewed at www.fabiosassi.foliohd.com​​