Trajectory

Imagine an orrery, one of those Victorian
clockworks with all the planets rotating
in their pre-determined ratios.
Imagine that device, held by
an assembly robot, as it works in
independent axes to weld car body panels
to a fraction of a millimetre.

Seat the robot in a roller coaster,
the screwiest at Alton Towers or Disney.
Place the whole ride on an aircraft carrier
in a gale with seas like Robert Garnham’s hair.
Position yourself as a spider on brass Neptune
and you’re still way short of the course
of Earth, as it burns towards Andromeda.

Simon Williams