There Is Absolutely Nothing Lonelier
Published in Poem Of The Day
There is absolutely nothing lonelier
than the little Mars rover
never shutting down, digging up
rocks, so far away from Bond street
in a light rain. I wonder
if he makes little beeps? If so
he is lonelier still. He fires a laser
into the dust. He coughs. A shiny
thing in the sand turns out to be his.
About this poem
"I was coming out of a bar in Manhattan in the rain at night. I felt lonely. Then I thought: There is nothing lonelier than that little guy up there on Mars, never shutting down. And if he's beeping up there, how much lonelier still, that no one can hear it. Still, I like to think the engineers designed him to beep."
-Matthew Rohrer
About Matthew Rohrer
Matthew Rohrer is the author of "Surrounded by Friends," forthcoming from Wave Books in 2015. He teaches at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.
(c) 2014 Matthew Rohrer. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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