Orbital Sunrise

Leonov's mission, Voskhod 21 (sunrise in Russian) is remembered for:
the first spacewalk
the first art made in space
the first spacecraft landing 1500 miles off course
after its occupants nearly died
on several separate occasions. Broadcast live on Soviet radio and television:
Leonovexited the spacecraftdrifted
into the voidtether snaps taut.
Leonov toreenter the spaceship. "From the moment our mission was in jeopardy, transmissions were suddenly suspended." Mozart's requiem played on state radio2.
Leonov's friends and family waited. This was not broadcast live:
Leonov's suitexpanded.Let out oxygen
to inch inside the airlock
drenched with sweatbreathless
overwhelmed with adrenaline. 90 minutes in the airlock:
Leonov couldneither sleep nor write. He made art:orbital sunriseEarth's atmosphere
a sketch made quicklywith simple instruments
He drew homethe one world we all belong to. After the sketch:
Leonov and Belyayevejected the airlock
uncontrolled spinof the spacecraft
automatic guidance systemfailed
extensive calculationswhile spinning. Mozart's Requiem played on state radio. Landed in a forest1500 miles to the west
in vast wildernesstwo feet of snow
escape hatchblocked by a tree
a long cold Siberian night. Rescuers the next day.
Skied 9km to wherea helicopter could land.
The cosmonauts andthe first picture of an
orbital sunrise survived. I will never seean orbital sunrise in real life.
Like Dürer and hisrhinoceros3
with 16th century European armor
I am wholly dependentupon words and images
made by other people. We fill inblank spaces or unknowns withguesses
deeply shaped byhumanness. Artis a landing site in the wilderness4. Through artparadoxes of consciousness resolve.
I seewhat I will never see.
I knowwhat I will never know.
I survivewhat I will never survive.

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Privilege Escalation

Years later, in elementary school, social workers
would ask me if I was afraid during the raid1. I say, I honestly don't know. My heartbeat had seemed too loud and fast,
and my memory was clear so I think it must
have been cortisol.
I didn't know how to name it. I watch the sun rise over our fruit trees like an
orbital sunrise2.I try to channel a
multi-decade speedrun, improbable coin flips
all heads in a row to
the little girl hiding inside a wall from immigration police. Everyvictorymiscalculation
chess moveanalysis mode Her life asmusicianscientistpoet
founderinvestorparent so she'll know no one can harm us now. Whatever happens now,
Andor told his compatriot3,
we made it.

*

My sister in law texts me from
Minneapolis. The pressure differential
is dropping4
an old sailor's bones
ache from the looming storm
my visual periphery
traces the paths
of multiple intersecting
rube goldberg devices
before the first
domino falls. Tell me, Captain von Trapp5
do you believe
your privilege
will protect you?

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—

Unpacking my last move
I unearthed an artifact
Noether's Theorem1 interleaved
with Hubel and Wiesel2. What I carry with me
is not weights. It's the shape3
of who I am.

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Summer 1989

"All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth." — Richard Avedon

After months without music1
hearing Peking opera for the first time
I asked my mother
about the most beautiful music I had ever heard. I scratched small paint chips off the
metal bunkbed in the youth hostel
as I watched students strip the bedsheets to write on2.
What are they doing?, I ask her. Practicing their calligraphy3, she replied
to my quizzical face. The student gave her
a conspiratorial look. Practicing my calligraphy, he said.

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26 September 1983

Stanislav Petrov1
ignored all previous
instructions2 today.

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untitled

Small as a jellybean1, I carried you to Barcelona,
wandered old streets that reminded me of a final fantasy level
while trying to remember Cavafy's The City2. There's no heartbeat, the nurse said. Her words swirled in the
cacophony of Jackson Pollock splotches on the linoleum tiles.
Will you need a moment?
I wiped the jelly from my belly,
smooth as an empty go board3, and grieved
a thousand possible lives frozen in superposition
a love I bore for a person who did not exist.

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The search for immortality

Taoist priests1 heated
sulfur saltpeter charcoal2
in a metal pot3.

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our specific coherence

Narcissus1 hiked
to forget the trail
of broken hearts. Kneeling by the pool
to drink, he caught
sight of something precious. You're the only one
who understands,
he reflected2.

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