I can hear the snow. Outside, up there, crinkling down past the rooftops and dusting the fire escapes that hang…
James Nasmyth
At first glance these intricate depictions of the moon might seem like photographs from the Apollo space program of 1961–75. In fact they were captured a century earlier by an ingenious and wholly land-based Scottish astronomer. Peering through a self-made telescope, James Nasmyth sketched the moon’s scarred, cratered and mountainous surface. Aiming to “faithfully reproduce the lunar effects of light and shadow” he then built plaster models based on the drawings, and photographed these against black backgrounds in the full glare of the sun. As the technology for taking photographs directly through a telescope was still in its infancy, the drawing and modeling stages of the process were essential for attaining the moonly detail he wanted. From the Public Domain Review

Repair (and other poems)
Incise pericardium, then aorta.
Place one finger to plug the hole that you have made.
Cannulate, stop the heart.

How Souls Travel
The number of cases, the CDC says, is 984. That’s 774 more than a week ago, the night my father died,…