fritillary frigate
Cockle & Foxfire
built a spaceship
from endangered morpho
wings & pull-tabs secreted
from Polar Seltzer cans.
On the summer equinox
Cockle severed the tether
& Foxfire exhaled hope
into soft gossamer sails.
They never crashed—
nor landed—
on this moon
or any other.
They are floating still:
Cockle thatching the roof
with shimmering cicada shells,
Foxfire tending mushrooms
in the meandering mess hall
each enjoying an endless
view of the stars.
Marisca Pichette is a queer author of more than three hundred pieces of short fiction and poetry, appearing in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Vastarien, The Deadlands, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, Asimov's, Nightmare Magazine, and many others. Her poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker and Elgin Awards. Their eco-horror novella, Every Dark Cloud, is out now from Ghost Orchid Press.