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While Looking Back on the Planets
by Alfredo Aguilar

i confess, i had grown
            tired of earth. or rather,
of the empires on it. i had
            once ran through every room 






​pelt. i saw the earth
            carvers adorn themselves
with the feathers of dead
            birds, while the birds lay, 





​ 
i built a rocket from fistfuls
            of scrap metal. i took a helmet
& called myself cosmonaut.
            i maneuvered in a direction 





​​ 
between saturn & its moons.
            i choose an eternity that opens
itself again & again, like a sky
            permitting a hundred points 





​inside a mansion insisting
            i & the people i loved
were not foreign or less
            than an animal’s





​
stomachs full of plastic.
            with each passing year i watched
 a lush hillside shrink until
            it could fit inside a bowl. 





​
​i felt mattered, though the direction
            wasn’t important. forever
was on every side. i measured
            devotion in the distance 





​
of light to pierce its shadow  every       
​               single night.

​


​

​Alfredo Aguilar is the son of Mexican immigrants. He is the author of the forthcoming chapbooks Recuerdo (YesYes Books, 2018) & What Happens On Earth (BOAAT Press, 2018). He has received fellowships from VONA & the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. His work has appeared or is currently forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Anomaly, Best New Poets 2017, & elsewhere. He lives in North County San Diego.
​Read more...
December 2017

ISSN 2157-8079
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