Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

Jennifer in Space: Ultrasound 
Ash Bowen

We've come to see it—
the slumbering world
in the airless bowl

of the amnion.
Conjured by the monitor,
its heart thrums

a silver rhythm—
tiny pulses we count
in the black hole

of its chest.
Impressive, this orb,
its gravitational pull

on us. So small, still
something convinces:
it’s the most important

planet. We watch it
ripple through its atmosphere
of slow-moving stars.

Around this sleeping
sphere we orbit:
impatient astronauts.

 

Ash Bowen’s poems have appeared in New England Review, Crab Orchard Review, Black Warrior Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. He is co-managing editor of Linebreak and co-edited Two Weeks: A Digital Anthology of Contemporary Literature, the world's first e-book-only anthology of contemporary poetry. This marks his second appearance in Pebble Lake Review. His manuscript is making the rounds.