Hot heat cosmic dust hazes windshields on scorchio waydays to say

the journey fades with heat fatigue.

The quiet shaded burrow of tranquility beneath the berried hedgerow

beckons home.

Oh! To suck the oxygen off chlorophyll leaf, lick glassy dew from grassy tips,

hear birds quaver with quivering syrinx and feel my own feet upon the ground.

Memories rush in, vivid as holidays.

It's a long dusty road by car,

Not much different by rocket and the space station, station, stationary or

rotating, we feel not which, but know.....

machinery knowledge which boosts the trustees like sprinters on the tracks

and thrusts us on to lunar dust.

Half machine, half me, half dead but more capable, half isolated but more visible.

No girly talk of periods or prosecco, no lipstick laughs or cheeky flirts,

no heavy duvets and the man I love beside me.

I am half fully trained so half machined.

Will he still love me when I return?

I find myself praying for the leafy glade or should I crash and burn?