​​All              for wonder,
                         wonder for all.

The summer of 2022—enter, a husky breath after one
held in groundhog days at the false alarm end. When
we came up for blue skies we chased again objects so shiny
we were blinded, moved so furiously we became tangled up
in the haze of the wild web someone out there made.
We granted ourselves the amazing grace of a wider lens,
saw awe square in the eye as cohorts of us dangled
with six feet of space, fingertip to fingertip,
mundane magic on tap,
tap,
tap
dripping from a faucet shooting the gas that lit
the periwinkle skies cradling us in the illusion of safety,
the same gas that made the pink of my mother’s womb
and the violet rays killing me by flesh softly yet so brutally.
You are made of stardust—a once-brilliant footprint, but now?
It’s been a while; I’ve evolved into an iteration of rearranged atoms
in need of a motivational quote. Did the big bang say to itself:
just do it? Did it know that one day it’d be capable of all of this?
Gravity fades undetected as I look up, see shifting monuments of
universal decay, some so far away they’re already gone, a chamber
of inescapable doom, luring us in with the silent echoes of
itty bittiness. Truth was on the tip of my tongue and
I realize, on my way to the unknowable finish line,
in a race no one signed up for, with no prize,
no consolation, but to be a witness to each rise:
You, my wonder, are still on your first lap.

Eau de Big Bang / N63A: Supernova Remnant in Visible and X-ray, December 11, 2019

Your Majesty / Dust Mountains in the Carina Nebula, October 7, 2008

Every Shade of Rain / Celestial Fireworks: Into Star Cluster Westerlund 2, July 4, 2017

Insta-noodle Poetry / In the Heart of the Heart Nebula, February 14, 2022

The Sugar Cube People / The Horsehead Nebula, July 13, 2003

Nevers / IRAS 20324: Evaporating Protostar, September 4, 2013

Stardust Yellow Pages / Molecular Cloud Barnard 68, June 23, 2009

Time is a Stranger I'm Not Ready to Meet / A Rocket Debris Cloud Drifts, February 26, 2007

How to Turn Pulp Into Stars / Abell 2218: A Galaxy Cluster Lens, February 10, 2008

Yellow Lights, Red Lights / La Superba, December 18, 2008

Painting Red Roses on Mars / In the Center of the Cat's Eye Nebula, July 10, 2022

Butterfly Effects / Iron in the Butterfly Nebula, July 21, 2020

Out There / First Horizon-Scale Image of a Black Hole, April 11, 2019

All Aboard the Trans-galactic Express / The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in Light and Sound, August 2, 2021

A chapbook is a small publication first sold by peddlers known as "chapmen", "chap" being the Old English word for "trade". Today, they're usually produced independently by authors themselves using whatever means they have available and often for poetry. Though neither of these are always the case, they are both true for Interstellar Flower Delivery, a 40 page chapbook available in both a handmade, printed limited edition as well as in an ebook.