FIONNA INWARD ALLEN

I want to be an astronaut gazing at our planet

with all the folk like little ants

scurrying down on it.

 

I’ve travelled on an aeroplane and stood high on a hill,

watching all the lights below

twinkle and grow still.

 

The workers in their offices, the drivers in their cars,

the floodlights over stadiums,

the neon lights of bars.

 

But I want to be like you, Tim Peake,

far away from here.

To eat the food in plastic tubes and twirl in the atmosphere.

 

I want to feel no gravity, do a somersault in space.

And what’s it like to wear that hat?

And does it squish your face?

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And what are all those buttons for?

And do you miss your mum?

I’ve got so many questions Tim, it makes my brain go numb.

 

I would miss dad’s spaghetti though,

and riding on my bike,

but I need to know the universe and what a spaceship’s like.

 

Oh, let me see our planet please.

The white, the greens, the blues,

‘cause I want to BE an astronaut, not watch it on the news!

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(2016)

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