“The rovers were designed to last for 90 days on the martian surface.”
- NASA website, Mars Exploration Rovers
See red: read heat
even as cold cracks the glass
face of the apparatus.
Although there is no scientific consensus on how
to measure absence or the history of absence,
send vapor samples from craters for testing.
Collect soil under the unmathematical rumble
of volcanoes, intervals of thick ash,
table mountains interred in winter.
Searching for liquid, find it all frozen
at the poles. What a relief –
to cease flowing, to calcify, to become
unmoved. To wash hands with ice.
Down cliff sides, with spiral radials
absorbing shock from spokes,
with cleats for traction, roll
over butterscotch terrain and rust,
magnetic dust, chaos in the canyons.
Drill where you can, until
the sand traps your wheels. Then
you're on your own.
