He began showing symptoms of coming and going
A nesting sparrow spooked off an egg

In the chamber, he picked up an echoing
transmission of a fragment humming
through the atmosphere 

Harder to hit he'd say than standing still,
the hardest form of survival

Rising early that morning,
he secured himself inside the cockpit
There was no lift off,
the boosters failed and the mission
had to be aborted

The simulated colony smoldered
in a pile beneath deciduous trees
He endured the perils of winter
to emerge as such in spring

Chris Corbett's fiction and prose has appeared in The Spectator, Shattered Wig Review, and The Red River Review. He lives in a tree house at the base of Mt. Tamalpais in Northern California and spends his days writing, reading, and spinning eclectic sets of music. To contact him, send email to Digital_Telepathy@msn.com.