Ultra Deep Field

• Note from Lover Number 403
• These photons traveled 13 billion years
• So you could see them on your laptop screen
• Ten thousand blips of light, each one
• A galaxy in its own right, each one only
• One of the hundred billion galaxies
• In the universe. All around us
• What we’re sure is empty is actually full:
• This glass of water, for example —
• Teeming with organisms I’m glad
• I can’t see. The hair you left on my pillow —
• Full of tiny creatures I can’t make out
• With my naked eye. Your smile —
• Full of experiences you had before me.
• Your greeting — more full of lies than a pack
• Of lawmakers. When I peer into your
• Ultra deep field, how many galaxies
• Of one-night-stands will I see sprinkled
• Among your handfuls of romances
• That lasted for more than one year,
• Never more than two? Ah fair one,
• I am closing my telescope now and my
• Microscope too, to return to the well-worn
• Minutiae of my own life’s cozy galaxy.

Tamara Madison is the author of the collection Wild Domestic, which was published by Pearl Editions in July, 2011. Her chapbook “The Belly Remembers” won the Jane Buel Bradley prize in 2004 and was also published by Pearl. Her work has appeared in numerous small press journals, including Chiron Review, Spot Lit, Hobble Street Review, and Tears in the Fence. Two of her poems were also recently featured on National Public Radio’s “Writer’s Almanac.” Tamara teaches French and English in Los Angeles. “Ultra Deep Field” is from Madison’s collection Wild Domestic and is reprinted by permission. Author’s photo by Sharon de la O.