NOAA-15 You were launched on a Wednesday in 1998 on a rocket called Titan impossible heat fuelling an ascent into low earth orbit Your launch site named after an air force general was 15 minutes’ drive from the town ‘Lompoc’ or, for Chumash peoples lumpo’o̥ ‘in the cheeks’ where placenames are bodies When you entered space I was nine playing soccer in Lompoc County skinny legs trying and failing to curl a ball into a net You fell silent on a Tuesday in 2025, impossible heat raging in wildfires below a night-moth beat the air swirling particles I know it’s ’empty’ but I listen to your frequency cold static filling a void of recognition