the flotsam of
a hundred satellite launches
the detritus of
a hundred missions
drifting, floating, unnoticed and forgotten
by all but the skywatchers who observe and who wait
a glove, a camera, a pair of pliers, some rubbish bags
jettisoned boosters, dispensable probes, leaking reactors
drawn slowly in, inevitably, inexorably
debris littered beyond the cloudscape
casually tossed aside as if
space were mere soil or water or air