Howard V. Hendrix
Astronauts Anciently Out of Eden
if naked to the invisible eye from space
all of us ever since Adam from Eve
saw that they were and everybody was
as the voice still on legs hissed
who told us that walking is
falling short of falling
asleep while dreaming then why
did the other voice boom
Who told you that? like it didn’t know –
just asking – was He just asking?
always got to watch our step
when orbit like walking is
falling short of falling
to the moon on two legs
sufficient to have stood but free to fall
upon its peaks of eternal light
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Howard V. Hendrix is the author of six novels from major publishers. He also served as lead editor on the nonfiction book Visions of Mars (2011). He and his wife Laurel are slated to edit The Encyclopedia of Mars and are looking for writers to contribute their work to that volume. His most recent short fiction, “Red Rover, Red Rover,” appears in Analog (July/August 2012 issue) and his most recent short nonfiction, “California Damming,” appears in Boom: A Journal of California (Summer 2012). He won the SFPA’s Dwarf Stars Award for Short Poetry in 2010 for a poem originally published in Abyss & Apex.
