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by Katherine Riegel

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When they sent the first rocket

filled with nanobots out to Mars,

 

they never expected a crash landing

so close to Earth. The humans on board

 

died immediately, but the nanobots

streamed out into the dust.

 

What happened next is too complex

for most of us to understand.

 

I like to imagine

they were lonely, with no humans

 

around. That they couldn’t find

the hidden water they’d been promised

 

and got frustrated, then bored.

Turning dust and rock to a giant

 

face was nothing—child’s play.

But how to talk to Earth

 

so we would hear? And then—

even harder, nearly impossible

 

to decide—what to say first?