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4/30/13

John Mortara


i am trying to tell you

            you can’t test the ocean
without warming it with your hand

that jupiter is a star that never happened

that reincarnation exists
            and when i grow up and die
i want to be a mountain

i am trying to tell you that black holes
hum B flat
57 octaves down

that          when a meteor strikes the moon
it rings like a bell

            i am trying to tell you sometimes
you can be too careful

that the average color
of the universe
is #FFF8E7

and they went and called it
‘cosmic latte’

i am trying to tell you this disappoints me

that sometimes i need to be left alone

i am trying to tell you
there is no mathematical possibility
for everybody to have a soulmate i’m sorry

some people fit together exactly
like they say they do

and it’s hard to explain how their atoms
will never really touch

i am trying

i am trying and this
disappoints me.


John Mortara lives and writes in North Carolina. He edits voicemailpoems.org and his poems have most recently been published in Fiddleback and Vinyl Poet.

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