after Gabrielle Calvocoressi
It would not be very good
for the plants. The experiments
would become worthless—I’m sure
if it was up to me to care
for the sprouting seedlings, they’d
die quicker than you can
snap a black thumb. The scientists at NASA
would sigh at the staticky refrain: Gretchen
killed another sample today. Endless
data lost, thanks to someone who
never learned to nourish
growing things. My grandmother
and her green thumbs might
keep the plants alive, but me?
No, they’d probably hide
me somewhere I would do less harm—
but where? I have no knack
for numbers, nor for making machines
run smoothly. Mostly, I could
communicate with Mission Control
once I stopped overthinking
everything. In my off hours, you’d find
me staring at the Earth’s curve
waiting to go home. And then
I’d miss the station. Point is,
I’m unskilled at being
the one who does the work
of maintaining life. Improving
slowly, I manage to keep a plant
alive for nearly a year, even if
its roots have rotted. Metaphor
for tenderness: the way my cat
meows, knowing she’ll be fed.
Make that active: knowing
I’ll feed her. Even now I would
tell my therapist relationships are work,
even when that work is positive
or welcomed like water in drought.
Caretaking is its own laborious thing.
If I lived on the ISS I would be
careful to avoid the specimens
indicating how well life survives
in a vacuum. Just in case
I might bias them unintentionally.
Someone says I’m basically a plant, needing
air, food, light to survive. I can’t
say they’re wrong. Besides, don’t plants
grow best when spoken to?
What can a plant say about our
chances? Doesn’t everything change
when observed? These questions
are why I don’t live
on the International Space Station,
why I don’t keep plants
alive for long. This is for the best,
probably. Just imagine
what I’d do, given space.
Gretchen Rockwell is a queer poet who can frequently be found writing about gender, science, space, and unusual connections. Xe is the author of the chapbooks body in motion (perhappened press) and Lexicon of Future Selves (VA Press) and two microchapbooks; xer work has appeared in AGNI, Cotton Xenomorph, Whale Road Review, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere. Find xer at gretchenrockwell.com or on Twitter/Instagram at @daft_rockwell.