O, Sadness Immaculate by Jay Hopler
Looking at them—; it's like bleeding. So I don't look at them.
O, Sadness Immaculate
by Jay Hopler
The women in Rome are so beautiful
It's like being beaten to death in slow motion
Looking at them—; it's like bleeding.
So I don't look at them.
I look at the parakeets nesting in the blood
Orange trees, the moon rising behind some ancient
something-or-other, the first few stars.
From my window, I can see the house
Where Galileo invented the telescope.
I wonder what he was thinking
That night, that night he first searched
Heaven. I wonder what it was
He was trying not to see.
First published in The Abridged History of Rainfall (McSweeney’s, 2016).
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