Joshua Zelesnick: The Future Is Here

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

an app to colonize the stars

the next generation could all

be holograms, light against

shadow creates what, roadkill

for one, maybe global economic

growth, laws, more mining nightmares

on the moons of saturn, choking

beyond the slow sweep of a hand

there is a flag easy to move

from our moon to another

to another, to all places

none of us should ever see

 *

the future is here, and it’s

lunar, concrete could be useful

for building structures on the moon,

especially when colonization

occurs, sulfur-based lunar concrete

is the way to go due to the abundance

of sulfur and the ill-abundance of water

although this isn’t a problem

for all moons, like the moons

of saturn, it is a problem for our

moon, so sulfur as a binding agent

is essential to our future,  manifest destiny

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Joshua Zelesnick’s recent poems and political essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Jubilat, Word For/Word, Juked, Counter Punch, Labor Notes, Poetica Review, 8 Poems and DIAGRAM. His chapbook Cherub Poems was published with Bonfire Books in 2019.  He teaches at public school in Pittsburgh where he lives with his partner and two young daughters.