Featured Poem • July 2014
Main Sequence
Saira Ali
For Michelle
None of the models fit. Hammer our eccentricities away, Discard the evidence trails we blaze, Astronomers, try to force us into their tidy hypotheses But we defied them all I was thought to be a moon Cold dark in indirected orbit around You, burning brilliant gamma ray and neutrino core Dazzled me A moon can’t survive its star’s extinction Drawn down into its gravity well Knowledge, then, your best last gift Which nevertheless I would return if . . . (red shift) I did not fold follow fall past the Discontinuity Heat rising stretching skin tight light seen through closed lids Is my own therefore I must be a star. Time and space warp shift twist under around through me Nullity tangible altering my course yes, but, Still I burn, traverse the vacuum Forging and scattering new constellations Spinning boiling turbulences dancing down my skin Until that day my fuel is spent and I follow you down Across that event horizon
Saira Ali grew up in the deep south of the United States and has still not acclimatized to New England winters. She is both an engineer and a poet, and rejects false dichotomies in all forms. She has poetry forthcoming from Stone Telling and Strange Horizons, and she co-edited In Other Words, a chapbook to benefit Con or Bust. You can find her on Twitter at @kitabiyatpress.
If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read, please consider pitching in to keep us going. Your donation goes toward future content.
