tiny blue purple    
       seal-like (selkie?) creature     
  hovering in orbit around               
         the earth, spinning, chasing.    
                                        
     looks at the sun with laser eyes,    
    looks at the earth's power grid,     
                                       
      says "hmm...."                     
                                         
                                        
                                        
  she swims toward the iss.               
  matches velocity, phases through the    
   wall to a pockocmoc scientist,        
                                        
                  she says, "hello",      
      she says "are you aware that        
                 there's a burst          
                 coming?"               
                                         
      and the station personnel          
    are like, no, what,                  
   who are you, etcetera, etcetera.       
                                        
    she says"i can protect you           
    in your tin can,                   
      but your planetary friends,        
       their grid will be burned."       
                                      
    she says "you will be alone         
             for a while".             
                                       
                                
 the selkie phases back out, 
 spreads her membranes, 
 like fluid insect wings, 
  a dark glimmering laserdisc.  
                                 
    she feedsonthe particles when   
   they hit her stretched skin.       
   and behindhere isa shadow, and    
   in that shadowis the space station. 
                                    
                                     
 a month later,the earth is stilldark.  
  there's no contact,                   
    maybe some shortwave and shit,       
     confirming that some               
      society's still there.             
                                        
       the astronauts are unwell -       
        they degenerate, in weird         
        selkie-induced nursing sleep,     
       to keep their heartbeats slow.