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N.E.O.

by Dr. Fiorella Terenzi

N.e.o.


Near Earth Object.
A solid body whose orbit lies within the orbit of Mars.

Moons Asteroids. Meteorites.

And human debris.

You can see a meteorite almost any night.
Go out to the desert


They are pieces of stars,
You might find a piece.


Same as you and me


They have travelled through space for thousands of years.


Perhaps you will get lucky

but you will never find a piece of Soyuz

or Sputnik or Apollo 9
They are still out there



They are very faint
And the pollution in earths atmosphere

Washes out their pale light




Floating without air, without light
Or else - charred on the re-entry

They are still out there floating


Within the orbit of Mars.


Look at it this way:

A river of space, a ribbon of time

Like a burial by a beaurocrat

Undercover of a cold war risk.

A cloud of dust-a cloud of rubble

spinning in space on the heels of the Hubble

A parallel, or a temporal rip

in the belly of the Cosmos

A fossilized finger
Somewhere in a hanger


Stored by the government, hidden from the press

Some young top gun s first solo

turned out to be a N.E.O.