this book is dense, so flip to the good part
where the author approaches a telescope
mounted on a hill, stands impossibly straight
as the body turns earthward to meet her hand
and she whispers into the lens, inaudible,
reasons with a world-spanning eye
who has that kind of chutzpah? not me
i could pin my annotations
to the college campus maple trees, maybe
fight some battles with database keywords
and an inborn ability to bluff—
sorry, mom, i take that back,
a learned ability to bluff
the women i knew did not expect
to be handed the tablets, or craft them
from some circuitboards and a 4.0
it’s not that we were castrated
of some divine right to presume to know
but we stared up at the weather system diagrams
while the spring blizzard shook the panes
and prayed in the snow to be delivered
from the labyrinth of reference
that formed our stubborn faith
***
Bel Wolf is an undergraduate who tweets at @stealsutrotower and, honestly, wants to be John Darnielle so bad.
***
image: “Holiday-Ay-Ay:” M. Roanoke is a queer folk artist based in Kansas City, Missouri. They are on Twitter @Roanokeoke
Rejection Letters 