We Live in the Future

I stare 
into a photograph 
of a nearby nebula
shot from a telescope 
in Chile
My most recent 
favorite roommate 
lives there now
(in Chile,
not the Carina Nebula)

I stare into 
the photograph 
because even in a photograph 
the magnitude of the depth of 
unknowable space surrounding us-- 
for an equally unknowable distance--
stuns me into a moment 
of deference

the depth of it
the nebula itself
a communication 
finally reaching us
a lattice of brilliance 
exhaled pearls 
long-dead light