We're Not Worried
A poem
Danish astronomers have just discovered sugar
— simple molecules of glycolaldehyde — floating
in the gas around a young, sun-like star, four hundred
light years away. The molecules are falling
toward
a binary star, a system of two bodies,
one
primary, one companion, orbiting about
a common centre of mass. This space sugar, they think,
helps replicate DNA. We too orbit. Tonight
it’s ice cream at The Boathouse Tea Room, noticing where
the Speed River’s melting and, more urgently, the sides
of cones. We choose chocolate and vanilla, measure
the deviations. An old lady is feeding geese.
Astronauts wanted neapolitan for their trips
to the moon. Freeze-dried prototypes proved impractical.
Crumbs were dangerous to microgravity, like bird
parts in plane engines. Now they sell it at the NASA
gift shop, so we can all travel to outer space too.
There are more choices than stars. Scientists are making
breakthroughs in slowing down melt, though can’t make it healthy.
You can’t take sugar out because of the role it plays
The chemical structure girds against dismantlement