The Blooms of Mars

By Ben Nash

They said nothing would take here. I believed them the first year. Red dust. Thin air. A sky like a warning. Then we put a boot down anyway. I like the sound this dust makes under a boot. It's finer than Earth. It hangs a second, like it hasn't decided to stay. Pink. Orange. Right out of the red. That's a crop. I can see the rows in my visor. Not Earth. Mars, wearing flowers. Helmet on. Same walk my grandfather walked in corn. Different planet. We didn't just plant flags. Flags don't move in the wind. We planted color. Something you have to tend or it dies. That's how you know it's real. Walk it. The ribs over the mountain. The field that shouldn't exist. Expansion isn't only cities. Sometimes it's a garden on a