Too Many Stars

When I was young

No, very young

I wanted to visit the stars

All of them

Every last brown dwarf

When only fifty million

Excitement flowed from system to system

Lazy corners of galaxy beckoned

I followed

Not always on time

Noticed my limits

Began to cast off illusions

Awkwardly, one by one

Soon ghosts became great friends

I came to Earth

Not believing how smelly

Enraged, polluted

Unlettered and unlovable

Short-lived species could be

Why linger?

The stories -

Of planets and pulsars

Aliens and citizens

Undead and unliving

Humans cunningly concoct

None of it true

The real rarely realized

But none of that mattered

I could visit anywhere

No secrecy

No unexpected costs

No travel bribes required

For guards at universe's end

The tales taller than gas giants

Yet they love them

The more absurd the more

People live faster in shorter works

I like fake tales too

Especially the ones I tell

My expertise: the post-future

Describing precisely

What cannot happen but will

Mine’s the least expensive way to explore every star

Particularly those new ones