Frontier Thesis

Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs.

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

They want the countrylike Ahab and the planet

like Yorick’s skull, freedfrom a body and all relation.

Why should the earthbe beholden to the sun?

Why should it remain a needyand insipid carousel?

Release it like a bowling ballin space—Melville once set pins

in Hawaii—or like the virusfrom your lips. It’s a howling,

intergalactic droplet, strikingout for darker pastures.