The little pirates climb the metal scaffolds

and bust open windows with sledgehammers

they carry canvas satchels and metric screwdrivers

they attack anything that looks like a computer

or a digital display

and twist and turn and pull

until power cords hang like dripping intestines

pulled from a slaughtered pig.

Circuit boards broken apart for gold

and resistors melted down for silver

they’d chop up the titanium hull for scrap

if only they had the strength.

Let the snows come and bury the complex

let the ages come and swallow the memory of

rocket roars and noble cosmonauts.

Imagine history books regaling their students:

“Once we flew to the stars in a snowstorm”

and chuckle darkly over the what had been folly

in a future where folly is all there is.