All Comets Welcome by Cathryn Shea

All Comets Welcome

Thoughts stream through the streets
with air on fire, ride neural networks,

streak by in a hurry, leave
tales fuzzy and images blurry.

(Cable is laid from here to Mars
but yesterday’s futures are expired.)

In another hub, messages queue
burning with importance, anxiously

ready to spin their quotes
in lasting anagrams good for the cryptic.

(Please do not ask What is Truth?
Our answers are unbelievable.)

Click the icon to send your comet
into the ether. It will fly

never to be seen or heard
in this lifetime. Roger, over, out, away …

Don’t wait up for a reply.
(Mail sent to important people

will be misplaced without a trace.)
Ever so happily, after

you pass, your star might cruise
the main drag again

and moon onlookers
while they stare into the space

devoid of a comma.
Your caesura will have caused

a longer pause
than you ever intended.

 

About the Poet
Cathryn Shea’s poetry is forthcoming in Absinthe and Permafrost, and has appeared in MARGIE, Gargoyle, Blue Fifth Review, Quiddity, Sierra Nevada Review, Soundings East, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Cathryn’s chapbook, Snap Bean, was released in 2014 by CC.Marimbo of Berkeley. She was a merit finalist for the Atlanta Review 2013 International Poetry Competition. Cathryn is included in the 2012 anthology “Open to Interpretation: Intimate Landscape.” In 2004, she won the Marjorie J. Wilson Award judged by Charles Simic. Cathryn served as editor for Marin Poetry Center Anthology, and worked as a principal technical writer at Oracle.