Hubble Deep Field

By Kirsten Chen

If it is true that when we look out
to space,
we are really looking in-
to the past,
why don’t we do it more often?

This question is posed to the deck
amongst family in adirondack chairs
and sits amongst us briefly
before we terrestrials agree on
consulting The Oracle of our time:
Google.

Which, in stunted exposition, tells us:
Bent constructs give way
to new sky.
Space constricts;
time slows. Spans of forgetfulness
coalesce and Spectrum-blind,
a strand of hair is mistaken for the head itself.
Space expands; travel.

(Time, as it happens,
accelerates not the hands of the clock
but our experience of them.)

An arms length, ursa minor
from one another, we suppose and
recline in-
to a position of zero gravity,
unearthed and equidistant
to annular openings,
exposed to the aether.

We suppose there is logic.
We suppose there is something,
definitely.

Then, attaching syllables
to fire, we suppose.

Headshot of Kirsten Chen

Kirsten Shu-ying Chen is currently pursuing her MFA in Poetry at The New School. She founded the artist collective “BTP” and works closely with Powerline, a platform for civic engagement.

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