POETRY

Orrery

By Jennie Malboeuf     VOLUME 50.1&2

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Cassiopeia sits opposite the Big Dipper
which makes sense. One is a vessel
and the other empty or
one is an empty
vessel and the other isn’t there.
One is a plough and the other:
a winsome woman.
We lay on our backs and
flatten the grass like circling
dogs. Dark sky objects.
Through the shitty telescope
we see Saturn, we think. I like
the life we live but hate life. Or
I love life but hate the life I live.
Most orbits are not perfect circles.
And the constellations are shaped
like dogs.




JENNIE MALBOEUF is a native of Kentucky. Her poems have appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Oxford Poetry, The Hollins Critic, EPOCH, Spoon River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She lives in North Carolina and teaches writing at Guilford College.

VOLUME 50.1&2