Marriage and other science fiction

In his new book of poetry, Albert Goldbarth dons his rocket blast-pack and explores the intriguing idea that the joys, despairs, and confused hesitancies of our most intimate relationships can be rendered through some of science fiction's most cherished motifs: that man and woman are mutually reconnoitered alien landscapes; that sleep is eight hours of time travel; that the city-smashing monster sometimes runs amok in each of us; and that the mind is as deep as the universe, filled with glories and griefs on the scale of planets.