Now the night sky has cleared a dying star flares
momentarily near the horizon,
and, above, Ptolemy’s Constellations –
Andromeda, Perseus, Pegasus,
Cassiopeia. Far below are twelve
of Elon Musk’s satellites in, as it were,
apostolic succession, nose to tail,
like any old circus act: transmitting
images of working class white men and youths
setting hostels and libraries aflame,
bellowing with hateful self-righteousness,
close-cropped heads contorted with bigotry;
images of their masters’ talking heads, coiffured
and smirking, inventing conspiracies
as tenuous as constellations; others,
paid to govern, serious and spruce,
with explanations as misleading
as any astral story; and those
who know racism when they see it,
and say so – and who have always known
that pieces of debris burning out
across the silent sky portend nothing.
By David Selzer