A sapphic pink and lavender sky betrays Maia’s nerves,
willing her to slow the ship’s descent,
softening her gaze on a pleasant planet she would gladly
give a decade of her short human life.
Streaks of flashing lights freckle the windows,
a familiar warmth creeps over her hand gently pressing on the hull;
soon those hands would be joined with another.
“We’ll be together again soon,
you, me, and the sellys you call chickens.
You’ll love the pebbled beaches, an endless scent
of saffron looming over lazy hills.”
It would be like their orbit around Io, yet grounded,
they would stretch on clover laden ground,
and work in tented structures nurturing organic life from tidepools.
One day their daughters would inhabit further stars.
Maia trembles with the shuttle, her fellow passengers
enmeshed in their seats and their minds.
She stares at the colorful rows of suitcases;
her dwelling with Bere would be their first home together.
Arrival unveils a litany of procedures and protocols,
a quarantine from a lady waiting in the wings,
and Maia envisions an outrageous fall in real gravity
into the outstretched arms of her favorite xenobiologist.
Angela Acosta (she/her) is a bilingual Latina poet who holds a Ph.D. in Iberian Studies from The Ohio State University. She is a Rhysling finalist with speculative poems in Shoreline of Infinity, Apparition Lit, Radon Journal, and Space & Time. She is author of the Elgin nominated speculative poetry collection Summoning Space Travelers (Hiraeth Publishing, 2022) and forthcoming chapbook Fourth Generation Chicana Unicorn (Dancing Girl Press, 2023).