MICHAEL PENNY

Mars

We have sent a box on cleated wheels
To our adjacent planet.

It sniffs the rock and dust
As it looks for carbohydrates
Just like us.

It radios back the news
There might be water and one rock
Might be something from a beach.

But in the end our mechanical scientist
Cannot find a tide to drag something in.

We abandon our small explorer
With all that science, and hope
That we are something somewhere else.

There are so many chemicals
In the untravelled hollows of space
That did not chose to become us.