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Elisa Gabbert

Bright & Distant Objects

Poetry from NER 41.3 (2020)
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Photo by David Jusko on Unsplash

I read a headline that said, “Human hair behind pigeons’ lost toes, study finds.”
I thought it meant that pigeons were growing human hair . . . behind their toes, their lost toes?
I felt sick with fear.
I read a headline that said, “Just thinking about bright objects changes the size of your pupils.”
So how do we know that we’re actually experiencing anything?
How do we know that we’re not just thinking about objects, bright and distant? Concepts? The future?
What do we know of “the actual”?

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Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Elisa Gabbert

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Writing this poem was not a commentary on a rivalry between the sister arts—poetry and painting—but more an experiment in the ekphrastic poetic mode.

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