Starry-eyed

There are scientists with mouths 
agape, eyes gazing
at Saturn’s rings: a satellite’s sink 
& swing make it so, unveil 
space secrets, star-trails, 
objects born of light & dust.
If a bell rings in space
they’ll have an idea how it 
sounds, they probably put it 
there. Can a bell ring underwater,
you’re maybe thinking? Me
too. Not a bell but a crash
in the rings has caught their eye, 
a swell of disturbance created
by a creature: Peggy.
At the time of writing, reader, 
Peggy has never exposed herself: 
what’s seen are the ripples
pulsing, ripples rising. We
know what she’s not: not
a moonlet, which would part
the dust more violently – so
a non-moonlet – not biblical, not 
a fish, the ripples are not akin
to those on Scottish lochs. Peggy 
leaves a hole in the rings like
an antique brooch needling 
into a cashmere scarf
– the gaps in the rings will 
reform & bauble yet always 
be different; not the same
as water, helixed & twisted 
through propeller blades, 
which remains water,
but not so different either.

They’re hunting Peggy’s ghost,
slug tracks, mouse droppings.
Don on the job,
satellite-wise, is Cassini.
Leering & loitering best & longest, 
after years of Peggy
shadow-stalking, Cassini’s
reign on Saturn’s lip
is trembling to a close. Retirement, 
sure, but Cassini will not
come home, instead will capture 
one last supreme
& crowning image of Peggy.
One last before plunging into
the fast flying debris. One last 
before eternal destruction.
A martyr to the moves of Peggy, 
perhaps touching the same
dust, perhaps, in the future, 
being part of a dustbin elbowed 
out the way as Peggy
rushes by: a snowy smear
of glowy smudge, penumbra 
winking down & grinning 
through the nebulae.

Scientists will call the end 
of Cassini a migration. 
Mission complete,
they’ll clink cups
& plot another probe. 
The end of Cassini
will be a 75,000 mile-an-hour collision,
a jet propulsion watched 
from an earthly laboratory. 
Cassini will get a moment
of silence before the drinking 
starts. Cassini is carrying
the question of life,
Cassini is a genius
in just one word, not
just a scientific success
but an act of desperation: 
requited & unrequited love. 
Cassini has left
the space business.