“though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death saves us.”
 –  Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

Your life is a light switch.
Just like that!
a flick and
affliction’s
fingers do their work:
elbowing you out of orbit.
A star, unpinned, cooled
to red-brown, spiralling
abroad:
tethered to absence.
You, corpse, quick-freeze.
Drifting on millions
of years.

They say the first thing
you should do, should you
find yourself unexpectedly released into
the immense void
is to exhale.
Is that what you did?
We, exhaling

into nihility.
Your lungs opened up,
a map,
steered you through
the gloom, propelled
you to face each meteoric
challenge. You trudged,
an endurance peel away,
that darkness peeled free of its
outer skin. Inside,

the fruit
of death: glowing
orb.
You cup it
in your hands:
every solitary star
in the cosmos, suddenly,
forming one abridged
constellation.  

“I’m unsure of the future but I’m not concerned. I will rely on those closest to me, and I will share their burdens, as they share mine. I will live and love.”

 – Roy McBride, portrayed by Brad Pitt
Ad Astra, (2019)

*The title of this piece is named after the movie Ad Astra, which is a Latin phrase meaning “To the Stars”.

David Hanlon is a welsh poet living in Cardiff. He is a Best of the Net nominee. You can find his work online in over 40 magazines, including Rust & Moth, Icefloe Press & Mineral Lit Mag. His first chapbook Spectrum of Flight is available for purchase now at Animal Heart Press.