You disappeared quicker than I could watch. 
Who would have thought gravity faster than
light, fire from the stars we know already
two hundred and fifty years behind, not
able to compete with the satellites
passing above the place where we lay on
the equatorial line, staring at the heavens. 
All through the night they traced our
sleeping as if following a magnet,
orbits slowly degrading, a limited
number of concentric circles, while they
signaled, mapped, tracked, escaping atmosphere
to briefly return, disintegrating.

– Sandra Kolankiewicz

Author’s Note: This poem is about a disintegrating romantic relationship. We went to Chang Mai in 1990 and trekked up near the Burmese border to a village where were to get on a bamboo raft and paddle back towards Chang Mai.  We lay on a woven bamboo porch and watched the satellites, clearly visible overhead because there was no artificial light anywhere for many, many miles. Like the satellite, our relationship was artificial and therefore could not sustain its orbit.  We are still friends, though, thirty or so years later!