Sonia Greenfield

EXOPLANETS

A blast of radio waves has reached earth
from elsewhere & astronomers tune in 
the frequency of waves that left 490 
light years ago. It’s all science of magnetics 
& fine-tuned machines & so much easier 
to imagine exoplanetary me cranking 
an anthem & wailing her specific paradise 
by the dashboard light inside whatever 
she calls her Chevy under whatever 
she calls her moon with whatever her voice 
sounds like where her life-giving star 
glows much the same as mine. Easier to 
imagine that somewhere in the traveling, 
scraps of music scaled off into the cosmos, 
the scientist’s telescopes picking up mere
fragments of a song sung full-throated 
& sent out like a prayer.

Sonia Greenfield is the author of two full-length collections of poetry. Letdown, released in March, was selected for the 2020 Marie Alexander Series and published by White Pine Press. Her collection, Boy With a Halo at the Farmer's Market, won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize and was published in 2015. Her chapbook, American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press chapbook prize. Her work has appeared in a variety of places, including in the 2018 and 2010 Best American Poetry, Antioch Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, and Willow Springs. She lives with her husband, son, and two rescue dogs in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College and edits the Rise Up Review.