Monet, Shaina

English

University of New Orleans

Ellipsis Volume 44 Article 13 2017 Brain Waves from an Alien’s Radio Shaina Monet Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis Recommended Citation Monet, Shaina (2017) "Brain Waves from an Alien’s Radio," Ellipsis: Vol. 44 , Article 13. Available at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/vol44/iss1/13 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ellipsis by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno.edu. Brain Waves from an Alien’s Radio Shaina Monet  Vassar Miller Poetry Award Winner  On antenna systems, Feynman notes: “Ours is one of the simplest possible ones; we can make them much more complicated, and by changing the phases in the various antennas we can send the beams in various directions and send most of the power in the direction in which we wish to transmit, without ever moving the antenna!”  — The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1, Chapter 29–4, Two dipole radiators   Not sleeping     under this window,      me, as the trees outside    peek through lantern light      and bamboo slats.   the blind’s bunched    strings illume.    sleeping troubles me most at night, because   I suspect  I have not met    the right doctor    yet the trouble with thinking at night     about the day I thought    I would never sleep     again     is how it felt,  how it feels    still-life like now.     I am afraid and say so.  Because I cannot     remember every body    and every  thing I have known,    and done,      nor what they have done to me   and mine,    my mind is likely to twist    one thing into another—   twine so     sound sews in two   syllables    the way I’ve imagined    a knot—     Tonight, trouble sneaks in,     asks me          what if  Ben didn’t hang himself  from a tree?    the blind’s bunched strings   illume. Because negation    is a rope    I can hang myself with, I have trouble    in my body.  nights    inside the refrain  of proper nouns, troubled sleep    and me,   as troubling as Ben     who’s passed himself    and passed  past  

Brain Waves from an Alien’s Radio

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Brain Waves from an Alien’s Radio

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