Instead, I hear the bend

                              beyond the asteroids bleed.

                   First one, then two, then whole planets they fall

                              and their milk will be pressed out,

                   their hulled tears, neither water or salt, hold elements

                              we can neither measure nor read

                  their red shift to name.  They carry

                  no life we know as life in their milled earths.

                              Their centaurs are long gone

                              replaced by an airless patience,

                                     their languages hot ores,

                                     or frozen metals.

                   Of their forgiveness nothing remains, not even Aztec

                                     gold to be ferried away

                   to the galaxies and sold. 

                                                                We know what their silence says          

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