The Salvation of Aurella Aurita
- The Salvation of Aurella Aurita
I check them every day to make sure they’re happy and in good shape.
—Dorothy B. Spangenberg, PhD
Jellyfish born in space aren’t happyOn earth. I don’t believe in any hocus-pocusNew-age mumbo-jumbo, but I hurt for this
Species of boneless electric wonderNamed after the moon. Self-possessed byA terrifying terrestrial bulk—weight—
They feel fat, slow, depressed, dying notIn the luminous white noise of galactic emptinessBut in casserole dishes, under-understood,
In some under-funded undergroundNASA lab, poked by pencils, punctured despairSeeping from their glassy globes. Perhaps
They pine for the way the weightlessnessOf space made them feel more like light bulbsThan corpses. I’d trade my life for that
Delusion of worth. The future is cannibalisticFor glowing things dimmed. And space-bornjellyfish lungs ache when the bluster
Of breath pollutes the soul. Then what’s leftTo be saved? I say, rocket them homeward,through the incinerating mist of earth’s atmosphere.
May their longing to be ethereal againCremate the damage of gravity. May the space dustOf their pain dissipate into the gasping void. [End Page 5]
Faisal Mohyuddin’s work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, RHINO, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (2010), and elsewhere. He teaches English at Highland Park High School in Illinois, was a 2014–15 fellow in the US Department of State’s Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, and recently completed an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago.
