Jake Rogers
Madrigal: Telescope
The zoom on my old telescope is broken.
When I try to see right in front of me,
I'm taken hundreds of miles away.
Is that my neighbor, buried in rubble?
Or is it my neighbor cruising the missile?
The zoom broke on this damn telescope;
I can't even see right in front of me.
Indignant rising ocean licks the coast.
I walk there alone with some sacred ghosts
to sketch a glimpse of golden horizons.
But the zoom's broke on my telescope,
I can't see my own life right before me.
I'm drowning thousands of miles away.
Bio
Jake Rogers teaches English and coaches soccer at Saint Elizabeth University in New Jersey. He attended Hood College as an undergraduate and earned his MFA in Poetry from Drew University. His poems have previously appeared in the Rise-Up Review and the anthology Fuck Isolation: A Tribute to the Covid-19 Experience from Garden Oak Press, as well as Arts by the People's "Jump the Turnstiles" collaboration between poets, dancers and animators.