All Palaces Are Temporary Palaces

                    by Rosebud Ben-Oni 

My niece calls with questions of asteroid mining.
At six she’s worried and can’t tell me why,
So we talk it out. I hear there is gold, silver, platinum
On spent comets. Who would say I do on a stony
Asteroid? People are already getting married underwater,
The very rich driving cars on coral reefs.
And if the newest frontiers require technology
Smaller than an atom, well, now there’s the pentaquark
Which is almost all quark save for one
Anti-quark, and if not for the anti-
Quark, would anything, any-
Thing at all, be? What's next is never
Enough. All left to chance shrinking. My dear, dear girl
Calling on this overcast day in the spring, where sky is one, long cover
Of impassivity. Why are we here? She's asking for the first time,
And I hear the anxiety of one who's stumbled upon a burning
Temple in the fields. We listen to each other
Breathe. I miss my train, linger on a winding staircase
In woodside, queens. I remember the day I discovered
This small stretch of exposed track subverting the sky and knew
I'd come home. One more day, and I will tell her this.
One more day for life on asteroids without fences or fracking,
And dreams know no deep inelastic scattering. Let it be
Where silence is never summoned, where rays
Collide in charm and strange.