Wilderspool Causeway

This darkness charts solo missions each orbit:
by Saturn, by Dogger, by rural churchyards
in hemispheres of local time. And space travel
is what older citizens are veterans of –
set their watches by.
                                   Only moving
in the Milky Way yields stardust at the temples.
This darkness is a field of constellations,
red shift, grey matter greying in transit
liked the neutron turned positive
inside the Crab Nebula.