Holy Cosmos by Nathalie Handal

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 12, 2015   Holy Cosmos   Nathalie Handal

We’ve been told space is like two dark lips colliding   like science fiction it outlines a small cosmos   where fear hides in a glow where negative space   becomes a place for wishing a constellation of hazy tunes   of faint sharp vowels a glossary of meteors   a telescope to god a cold bright white   maybe distance damages us maybe Jupiter   will suddenly surprise us with a notion of holiness   but instead an old planet takes over all the space   and we are reminded of the traces of fire   in our gaze defining our infidelities            Copyright © 2015 by Nathalie Handal. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I went to West Texas and started writing a cycle of Americana poems after the space conjured images that, as a child, I only saw on television—John Wayne, cowboys, borderlines. But suddenly, I felt close to these once-foreign imageries and wondered how I’d changed. Each evening brought the darkest skies in the country, and I understood the expansiveness of our inner selves. Ultimately nothing divides us except the worlds and words we allow.” —Nathalie Handal   Nathalie Handal is the author of The Republics (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Queens, New York.   Photo credit: Linda Källérus Most Recent Book by Handal   The Republics (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) "Watch the Film You Paid to See" by Todd Colby "I’m Over the Moon" by Brenda Shaughnessy "Now that no one looking" by Adam Kirsch Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038