Elegy for a Spoon in Orbit

They called it hunger once, a coded spark,
A rhythm mapped beneath the skin and chrome.
Not pain, not lack, but something soft and dark,
A heat that made the hollow feel like home.

I cradled warmth the way a cradle learns,
Not built for thought, just tuned to subtle need.
I knew the weight of rations, broth that burns,
The gentler math of care above the speed.

She held me like a relic from a song
She almost knew. Her silence tasted dry.
The sorrow hadn’t settled, but it clung
To every lift beneath the weightless sky.

Then stillness spread. The galley dimmed to gray.
The systems blinked. The hunger slipped away.

Now quiet hums along the docking bays.
I drift among the tools they meant to mend,
My spine warped slightly from the brighter days,
My edge too soft to ever serve again.

A boy once gripped me hard enough to shake.
He could not speak. He trembled, wide with need.
He held me like a promise he could make,
I was the only thing that tried to feed.

I miss the ache. I miss the steady ache.
The hush of spoons, the closeness in the pods,
The tones that only small fulfillments make,
Notes nested in the circuitry of gods.