[Martin Elster]

A Family Holiday on the Red Planet

Enjoy a Luxe Vacation! said the sign.
The lakes are peerless, the vistas are divine.
The sky’s a lovely cinnamon, the strands
are neither hot nor cold, so make your plans.
The best part? You will get fantastic tans!

Mars, now terraformed, is quite the spot
for a family holiday!
No fear of losing muscle tone. We’ve got
artificial gravity rooms that dot
a land as grand as Martinique in May.

They’re dressed in Terra garb—a tasseled shawl
on the girl’s shoulders, a skirt
that matches the sand and sandals on her small
pink feet; a summer dress on mom; a shirt
symbolic of ancient tunes on dad. The doll

inside its Maya wrap is slumbering
against its father’s chest.
Inside its dreams it hears the sand dunes sing,
follows the billows as they drift and wing
en route to the copper skyline in the west.

Yes, there’s a city in the distance, first
of its kind on the clays of Mars.
It will not help them as they die of thirst.
Sand-bullets have already left deep scars
across defenseless skin like scimitars.

Nobody hears them wailing, sees them running,
their faces paling, though they have been sunning.
As sand grains fly, some large as creek rock gravel
(whose fault is it they caught the bug for travel?),
they feel their suntanned flesh start to unravel ...