Over a cup of Marco Polo
And a bowl of bird’s nest soup,
Listening to the world as a whole
Through the particular, I wept into
The telephone trying to record
The room tone on the other end
Where a stellar aberration of light
Is transfigured by love trundling
Love in to show there’s no killing
The awe I feel for the ape who
Quietly blazed with attraction
In a field as she ate a raw potato
Off the ground, rose into space,
And disappeared—in her place,
A stack of orisons grows, one
Note at a time, sent from where
We’re going until we’re gone.

Winner of the 2018 Winter Anthology Contest