Mars

He releases a valve, hoping to adjust.
Thoughts ribbon from his gauzy head

to catch in the maw of something else.
The computer's hum becomes a song;

it's lights: a burgeoning kaleidoscope.
He delves deeper to another surface,

loses mass, tries to exercise to slow the descent,
but resistance leaves concentric red bands.

His love disburses into the atmosphere,
hangs in the air like a question,

condenses shotgun on stark charred mornings,
obscures his porthole mirror image

with the crumpled geometry of landing.
The days tessellate together to form

a crystalline skeleton with red blood
beating desire blue into his torpid body.

The realization his eyes are only lenses.
The curdled emotion microscoped indefinitely.

He finds life and doesn't beam it back.