Cosmik Hubris
coin a globe-girdling term like Earth’s atmospheric five
(troposphere stratosphere mesosphere thermosphere exosphere)
but one for full and fuller with millions of Zipfian-scattered pieces
from paint flecks to dead multi-ton satellites ASAT weapons test
debris and glint-clutter swarm satellites eating ozone at re-entry
everything moving in low earth orbit 7 to 15 times faster than
a mushroom bullet in an ever-thicker trashopogenic Rubik’s shell
of hypersonic shrapnel bombing around Earth rendering satellite
orbital space a Cantor-dusting ballistic maze so unnavigable
it shuts the sky like a prison gate—
call it a Kessler ballistosphere
and don’t those boys down at the Billionaire Rocket Club break
on black felt orbital commons a mean game of shatterball billiards
from which even their descendants won’t escape…