Chronicles of Transspace Fleet #128
​​Nikki Smith

I. 
   “Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with
                        me.” - Leslie Feinberg 

So finally they eradicated nature, too. 
II. 
The night before we leave 
Earth, I crunch out onto my porch 

in snow boots and pajama pants 
for one last joint to fill up my lungs 

with smoke—a cancerous keepsake to remember Earth by.
A gruff nod to the countable glinting stars, 


the same ones that Matthew Shepard saw when he looked up
from a fence not fifty miles from here. 


If we can still see dead stars, maybe they look down
and see Matthew on the porch with me, 

snowflakes clinging to his eyelashes, shivering
and blowing smoke out into the gummy dark.



III. 
As it turns out, it’s not too difficult 

for a bunch of queers to commandeer 
a billionaire’s rocketship, 
as long as you bring enough bricks.


As we lift off, the boosters roar,
the scream of a raw and practiced throat. 


Sweaty squeezing hands and red flashing 
lights and the pressure thundering 
in our ears and higher and 
higher and nothing 
but flimsy groaning metal between us 
and the hostile atmosphere and hot, 
hotter and then 
we are 
                                                  weightless 

IV.
          we never needed something as binary as

                                                                                               gravity out here we are 

                                                                                 the space 

​                 between every star each molecule a point

                             of infinite possibility-–imagine

                      building a body atom by Adam seizing the reins of creation then leaning back

                                                                             knowing 

                                                                             the void 

                                                                                                 will catch

                                                                                                                        him
V.
We name new 
constellations for 
                                      Marsha 
                                      Joan 
                                      Leslie 
​                                      Lou 

And when nature as we know it is out of sight beyond dark endless
horizon, we hold each other and remember 


in another’s mouth the taste of peaches, 
the breath of fresh mountain air. 


Try not to long for Earth—instead watch 
your trans sisters, their faces
​

bathed in the dawn of a newborn star and know 
nobody will ever hurt them again.

Nikki Smith (SC '25) is a poet, insomniac, podcast addict, and part-time female from Boulder, CO.