“Thermal Imaging,” a Poem by DeeSoul Carson

“Thermal Imaging”

The beautiful British nature documentary narrates that their cameras
are military grade, meaning that before this technology was used
to peer into the areolas of ants about their business, or to stalk
the thermal signature of a tiger with such clarity and precision
one might think the beast observed by a shadow, a military
—likely ours, likely unwarranted—traced the path of a group
of boys, likely pubescent and unaware of their tracing, for miles
before ordering a strike someone will call surgical, as if to excise
a tumor and not to condemn to death a child someone will mourn
despite the camera trained on their figure, the aperture analyzing
even the twitch of their eyes as they flick towards a God we have long
ignored or abused, trained so close and so clear on their tears that,
in a different context, we might think it a river, its gentle arc,
its ceaseless flowing

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“Thermal Imaging” by DeeSoul Carson was the winner of MQR’s 2025 Laurence Goldstein Prize in Poetry.