Something called a Context Camera took pictures of the Bosporus Planum, pocked and pitted as an arid valley or a face awkward and ablaze with acne in a land abandoned by time. Scientists say these craters prove Mars once teemed with liquid water: freshwater pools, rivers, streams that must have held some form of microbial life before the water left or vaporized, leaving only its mineral trace. Here where we live, out west, farmers uproot whole orchards. From above, rows of almond trees lie brittle on their sides, overcome by the growing waterlessness of living. Brush fires ignite smoke-wreathed constellations in late summer's blistering heat. We are so desperate to find a cool source for our thirst, a world where we can rest a cheek on the ground and not be scorched.
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