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 laugh
Into the telephone trying to record
The room tone on the other end
And saw a stellar aberration of light
Transfigured by love trundling love
In to show there’s no cheapening
The awe I feel for the ape who
Quietly blazed with attraction
As she ate a 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.

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Aaron Fagan has variously worked as an editor for Poetry, Scientific American, and Fine Homebuilding. He is the author of Garage (Salt Publishing, 2007) and Echo Train (Salt Publishing, 2010) and lives in Connecticut.