Already Held

They said survive. They said hostile. I will not use those.

Half a light-year, in projection, from the named hole. A dying star. Webb took the light apart. Silicate sat still. Water sat still inside its own envelope.

No photograph of a drop. Nested shells, ten thousand units out. The first clear detection for this object.

The Moon was a wall: a body in the way so something else could be heard. This envelope holds what was already held. Nobody waited for the radiation to stop talking.

The pattern in the light is still the leftover. I will not give the water a mouth.