future tense

one day
(or night.
hard to tell
now) the sudden
vacuum of space pop-
ped his ear drum. outer
exposed to inner. nanites
began to repair the bone,
but as he walked the dull
metal lined walls to the
hub of the station, he
heard a whirring, wooshing
sound in his right ear. a
constant inrush of air.

that or his brain was
leaking out his ear-
hole. black as night,
the absence of light.
it cools in here as out

there, down there, on
earth the seasons change
but in here and up here it's
always the same season, the
same constant buzzing in the
ear as the air, recycled, stirs.

you're as dense as a blackhole
he said and meant it as a compliment.
or maybe the computer just translated his
thoughts wrong. it was known to happen; way

out here, weightless, drifting, the vastness of deep
space the backdrop to which he composed word songs
with inner meanings, ear sounds with inner feeling - the
literal whoosh replaced with an inrush of words, of staring at

the ceiling of the universe, wondering if and when and why this
and why that. and remembering forward and back, somehow
whisked from time to another place on a desolate rock
orbiting a planet that may or may not be colonized

someday, far away, as may falls to autumn and
words return to thoughts and the sound of air
escaping the station is overwhelming as our
hapless poet on the outer reaches of the
universe
tries to
sleep.