Rip van Winkle on Mars


I'd dreamed a Martian tundra:
tussocks, tiny flowers--
I guess I overslept

Dome open to the thin cold sky,
rooms agape, no thing left behind,
a burn mark where the lander crouched
is their goodbye

out back a midden: wrappers, boxes;
hunkering, I see a bit of gray-green mold
inside a plastic wrap,
company is good, but for companionship
I'll need to wait a few billion years.

I could use a nap.