To Asteroid Miner, in the Lobby of Central Spaceport Rasalas
You stand there: strong, barrel-chested, honest
(or so those who commissioned and installed you
would have us believe.) Did you know, back then,
that you’d be abandoned, die on the same little planet
they plucked you from? That you would be forbidden
the very future you promised? Men like you
are waiting, beautiful and forgotten and cruel
on their backwater spheres, clinging to your lie,
which they have always known to be false, but hope
for anyway, since holding is easier than change,
no matter the damage they do in so doing.
Did you know, then, that you would greet and witness
only those who, like me, find themselves in your spaceport
as avatars of everything you (and they) aren’t? I love you,
I find myself saying, as if you could hear, as if I could
reach those who, emulating your lie, refuse to enter the future
they have because it is not the one they were promised.
This love—in spite (or perhaps because) of the knowledge
that your promise could never be delivered—is yours.
And I like to think someday they will let go and join me
and find some comfort in the world they find, as I do,
meeting you, and, in you, seeing them among the stars.
Tristan Beiter is a queer poet and speculative fiction nerd originally from central Pennsylvania. His poetry and criticism have previously appeared in such venues as Strange Horizons, Chicago Review, Liminality, Abyss & Apex, and the 2022 Rhysling Anthology. When not reading and writing, you can find him doing needlecrafts, crafting absurdities with his boyfriend, and yelling about literary theory. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky at @TristanBeiter or at his website tristanbeiter.com.
