over and over again

until it means nothing.

Colin McGuire

Juno

Juno is a NASA spacecraft on a mission to the planet Jupiter

A five-year galavant 1.74 billion miles out;

an all-inclusive holiday. Nothing but a speck

on the lens of a microscope.

On your dashboard a plaque bares a dispatch

from Galileo: ‘I was the first to see

your four moons, Jove, way back when...’

Three Lego figurines, lucky talismans:

Galileo himself; Jupiter, god of the sky,

and wife Juno, the goddess of marriage.

Good karma tied to the rearview mirror,

Earth, a furry dice, swinging

pendulously in the interior.

Juno, the dune buggy,

off on a road trip to meet

your mysterious other half.

Jupiter is all gas anyway,

but you want to know

what lies behind that giant veil,

if there is any substance beneath that reputation.

You will go as close as you can, park up,

spread your three solar arms wide;

a temporary star,

recording exactly what

we don’t know.

You orbit round Jupiter like the first dance

between bride and groom;

and it will all be over, Juno, all too soon.

Colin McGuire

Lauren Harwyn is a writing witch and intersectional feminist from California, USA. Harwyn graduated with honors from Mills College, Oakland, CA and attended Scottish Universities’ International Summer School for creative writing in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has been published by Dear Damsels, Zoetic Press, Northern Light, and elsewhere. Harwyn won Soliloquies Anthology’s flash fiction contest and attended the Orchids Without Attached Thighs workshop with Winter Tangerine.

Louise Peterkin has had poems featured in various publications including The Dark Horse, New Writing Scotland and The North. In 2016 she won a New Writers Award for poetry from the Scottish Book Trust.

She lives and works in Edinburgh.

Colin McGuire is a poet and performer from Glasgow, who lives in Edinburgh. He has written and performed relentlessly over the last fifteen years, and is the author of three collections, the most recent being his first full collection, As I sit quietly, I begin to smell burning, (Red Squirrel Press, 2014).

He has also been an ESOL teacher for the last seven years, teaching English to young learners and adults from across the world.

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