Look up at the sky on a cloudless night, 
you’ll see a display of saucer-shaped flowers 
shining red between midnight and dawn. 
The waxing and waning of the polar ice caps 
bears the first splash of bright colour. 
Mulch in spring, stake the stems, water when the weather is dry. 
It’s no easy feat. The most tricky phase still awaits. 
Wear gloves to survive what space scientists call 
“the seven minutes of terror.” Some people develop a rash. 
Fresh water transported in, or made in situ 
is not as far-fetched as it sounds. One possibility is to live 
underground in caves. Keep watch for slug damage. 
High radiation and oxygen levels at just 0.16 percent 
produce fragrant spidery flowers. 
Life around hydrothermal vents will last until the first frosts. 
You will not succeed unless you provide the necessary conditions—
humus-rich soil below ground in the nooks and crannies. 
Deadhead and spray against greenfly. 

Growing Flowers on Mars, 2023 (paper collage)

Copyrighted © by Jane Salmons. All rights reserved.
Appears here with permission from the artist.

*Note:

This is a “found” poem with words from Dr. D. G. Hessayon’s The Flower Expert, and from an article by space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock in The Sunday Times Magazine (9 August 2020); link retrieved on 31 August 2023:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/life-on-mars-why-the-race-to-the-red-planet-is-back-on-5t8kj9v56

Jane Salmons

is from Stourbridge in the UK. Her first poetry pamphlet, Enter GHOST, was published by dancing girl press in 2022. Her debut poetry collection, The Quiet Spy, was published by Pindrop Press, also in 2022.

Jane has micro and flash fiction stories published with MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, and in the Ad Hoc Fiction anthologies Dandelion Years and Flash Fiction Festival Five; and forthcoming in The Dribble Drabble Review. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and nominated for Best Microfiction 2023 and Best of the Net 2024. Her story Miracle Grow won the Pokrass Prize at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival held in 2022.

Author’s website: https://www.janesalmonspoetry.co.uk

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ The Weightlessness of Love, ekphrastic microfiction by Jane Salmons in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022); nominated by MacQ for the Best Microfiction 2023 anthology.

⚡ Passengers, ekphrastic microfiction by Jane Salmons, in Starry, Starry Night: An ekphrastic anthology inspired by Van Gogh’s masterpiece, published by The Ekphrastic Review (25 February 2022)