Voyager Golden Record
Joshua Ruffin

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1

Tucking a stray
hair behind your ear doesn’t

make it any less real.
More so: a seasonally

early thaw, political
cartoon of a bull

moose drinking tea. A topic
of conversation violently

there, ignored.

2

Ours is a planet whose only
name will be a letter

strange to us. With time
maybe

we would understand
that scattering of lye,

that malarial preacher singing.
We would understand the wall of light.