Picture of the Day

At first you don’t even notice
the absence of red in the sunset
over the Gusev crater. Caused
by the absence of
air I presume; our home star,
pure white. Made so
small and so
cold by its
extraterrestrial distance. But

beneath the missing ear
of the Cape
Buffalo (it’s been gnawed off)
the ruby carnage of the split
ribcage, the small
squirt of blood drying near
the lion’s whiskers, red
abounds. And although they call the turtle

green, the thin coat of
algal slime on its
ovoid carapace as it ballet-dances
through the transparent
ballast of blue ocean resembles
the color of rust,
even as its tesselated
head and flapping
(or are they paddling)
forelegs (or are they arms) verge
to purple.

It is because of not despite
the fact there are so many
places I will never
know, that I am so
jealously grateful for these
copylefted pixelmatrices,
these photospassports to
Sochi in 1915 Abkhazia,
to the alluvial
fans of the Taklamakan as seen
from a satellite, the half-buried
dust-bowl jalopies in Dallas,
South Dakota, the
psychedelic paisley
of the mandarinfish’s garish
obi.

Beauty asking
nothing in return;
for a femtosecond, revealing
the permanence of difference
and the differences of recorded
permanence.