The following poem was first published in the Summer 2024 edition of Altered Reality Magazine. It’s about a man living on the planet Mercury, trying to survive the extreme temperature oscillations. During the day, the surface temperature can reach 790 °F, while at night the temperature plummets to −270 °F. Interestingly, because of Mercury’s highly eccentric orbit, a solar day (the time it takes the sun to return to the same place in the sky) is two Mercury years long.

The first planet from the sun, spinning splendid, not outdone

by its neighbors orbiting in the solar sea

With temperatures most extreme, oscillating as its theme

from the scorching heights supreme to a darkness still and icy

            From this world I cannot flee

            From this madness never free

With no atmosphere to speak of, mercury rising, creatures sneak off

hiding from the soaring sun, searing blasted scree

Stretched across this barren plain, regolith gray and granite veins

a desert land where gravel reigns, absent the Almighty

            Forget me not, Lord, this I plea

            Save me for eternity

Temperatures are climbing higher in this heart of frost and fire

where a day lasts two long years by some strange decree

Where the sun sets once then twice, I’m trapped within this heated vise

my constant pining for some ice, I pray thee foolishly

            The heat is boiling, naturally

            But worse than cold? I disagree

The last of sunlight’s rays are gone, a year of coldness soon will dawn

I build a shelter, bundle up, then begin the long withdraw

A place of blackness with no moon, the stars across the sky are strewn

while I am bound to this cocoon, in a cave that’s bleak and blah

            My teeth chatter, tight-set jaw

            Jack Frost to my ears will gnaw

This cold sets in; it won’t let go. Around the campfire’s measly glow

to stay alive I take my leave and march my numb feet raw

So I start to weave and wander, while my sanity I ponder

I think I’ll backtrack over yonder, then I freeze in awe—

            The sunlight breaks! Aha! Aha!

            And so the ice begins to thaw

I can’t do this? Who’m I kidding? The stoic sun glares down, forbidding

I cover my face, give cry and chase, and fall on bended knee

Sunlight so white and burning bright, I plead for night: it isn’t right!

Please hear my plight, you ghostly fright! I beg you: can’t you see me?

            The curtain closes on year three

            This cycle will not let me be

The cold has come again, I say! I cannot last another day!

Seesaw, seesaw, mercurial beebaw! Deedaw, meemaw, gleebaw, streedaw!

I’m descending into madness, filled with overwhelming sadness

surrounded by this pointless badness, circling round and round

            I strive across this cursed ground

            where every rock is dull or brown

            for in this prison I was bound

            when my spaceship hunkered down

            and I very nearly drowned

            as my head was justly crowned

            with fateful memories I found

            of the grating, hating sound

            of a mind which knows no bounds

            but circles round and round and round

Hot then cold then hot again,

then cold then hot then cold and then…