Paige Lewis

This glowing debut explores the wonders and cruelties occurring within nature, science, and religion. Its poems pulse like starlight.

Space Struck

belong in this space with me, getting fingerprints / all over my glossy animals, then we’ll journey / until we find the world in which we both fit. 

And when the path grows too dark to see even / the bright parts of me, have faith in the sound / of my voice. I’m here. I’m still the one leading.

from “the terre haute planetarium rejected my proposal”

as everyone else, the place where / people take and the taking becomes / its own person. Where everyone hurts 

and gets hurt, and the hurt can be heard / asking the same question—Why isn’t anybody 

stopping this? And the powerfully worse take / a vote, they elect their answer carefully: / Stopping what?