Holy Cosmos
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. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 12, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.
“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
Nathalie Handal is the author of several books of poetry, including Life in a Country Album (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019) and The Republics (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), which received a 2016 Arab American Book Award