At about 2.5 ft/sec, a
body in the Loop Current
will disappear posthaste.
Our planet is pitiless,
the nearest goldilocks
14 light years away,
only 4 times the mass
of earth and rocky,
with 18 day orbits.
Perhaps life has existed
near Wolf 1061
the decade we’ve watched,
and bodies warm
in a gulf stream
like Southerners here,
2 weeks to decompose,
8-12 years to finish…
But perhaps not. I can
imagine that world
still unwilling to
loop to death, still pristine.
The chance is as
real and as fun
as the skeletons inside us.
David Rodriguez is a writer and teacher based in New Orleans with an MFA from Florida State University. He has previously been published in the New Orleans Review, The Southeast Review, The Sandy River Review, Hawai’i Review, and Jarfly, among other places.
califragile.org 