On Our Third Day in Space

On our third day in space

We finally figured out

How to use

The microwave

It’s not really a microwave

It’s this thing

That looks like a microwave

But obviously a microwave in space

Would be--not good

So it’s something else

But we can never remember

Its actual name

So we call it the microwave

And then inevitably

Dan the Engineer says--

It’s not a really a--

And we’re like--

We get it, Dan!

We get it.

There are so many things

We had no idea how to use

On the ship

When going through orientation

All of us assumed

Someone else

Was paying attention

And budget cutbacks

Resulted in all the tests

You used to have to pass

Before going into space

Being cut in favor of a verbal exam

Consisting of one question:

Do you know how spaceships work now?

We were asked to nod

We nodded

And they sent us

Deep into the cosmos

On our first day in space

Bob the Navigator

Touched what he thought

Was a button

That would make him coffee

And instead

It sucked his entire body

Through a very small tube

And out into the deepest

Most permeating darkness

That’s ever existed

In the history

Of the Universe

After that

None of us felt all that comfortable

Touching buttons

That first night

When the time came

For induced slumber

We were too scared

To hit the ‘Sleep’ button

So instead

We lay awake

Counting the stars

Right outside our porthole

And wondered

How long it would take us

To die of sleep deprivation

If we decided

To never sleep again

One of our training classes

Covered sleep deprivation

But we all skipped that class

So we could watch Apollo 13

And practice saying--

Houston, we have a problem

That movie should have served

As a warning to us all

But we thought by watching the movie

We were preparing ourselves

For whatever could go wrong

On a ship

It never occurred to us

That simple things like

Trying to make coffee

Could kill you

We were expecting alien battles

And fires in the hull

Not a sneeze

That turned into an infection

That turned Dana the Pilot

Into a Space Zombie

On our third day in space

We microwaved some ice cream

And tried to do the exercises

The folks at home

Had set up for us

In the lab part of the ship

But we couldn’t remember the code

To get into the lab

And nobody could remember

Where it was written

And we all knew that Bob knew

But that wasn’t going to help us much

So we just ran on the treadmill for a bit

And then wrote the number ‘18’

Down on a scrap of paper

We found floating

In the Vomiting Room

Or what we now call the Vomiting Room

Because everyone goes in there to vomit

And it’s become really quite disgusting

We would open a window

If we knew how to do that

Or a porthole

We’re calling them portholes

Even though that might not be

What they’re supposed to be called

Nobody knows

What anything’s called

And that’s really proving tricky

Exceptionally tricky

For all of us

When you’re an explorer

You’re supposed to be good

At naming things

And we are

It’s remembering the names

Of things

That already exist

That keeps tripping us up

We keep passing one planet

After another

Looking at each other

Asking--

Do you know what that one is?

Or that one?
How about that one?

Meanwhile the people

Back at home

Keep trying to contact us

On the radio

Asking if we’re there

And if we knew

How to use the radio

We would answer them

If we knew what we were doing

There are so many things

We could do