Winter 2014: Poetry

Focal Distance

by Jenna Thompson

If you let me, I’ll teach you to see.
Hold my inelegant lens to your
own fluid eye and the world
becomes clear.
Don’t ask me why its reduction
lets you breathe.

Is it all too much? The scope,
the endless directions you could look,
close-up or wide angle,
panorama?
No wonder you need my small window,
dials, settings, focusing rings,
a once-lively moment captured and stilled.
Maybe you need the shattering
brightness condensed to a slivered dance of light.

A sliver is all I can give.
I envy your involuntary blink,
The way your pupils accept
without strategy or manipulation
the illumined shimmer
on grass blades, window panes,
glancing the water’s surface like
a million gold pennies.
I envy the ease of images entering,
folding themselves into secrets you
keep for later.

I am not a shield. Never meant to close you off,
keep you separate. If I could trade
my thick curved glass for the breathing
pulse of eyes then
I’d hold mine open,
welcome the pang
of light and color,
watch the fractured world made whole.

Poetry Multi-faceted, poignant and inspiring. We’ve caught thirteen never-before-published poems by twelve master-class voices.		Prose Five women share their talent and themselves in new, surprising and heartfelt ways.		Artwork Established craftswomen and aspiring visionaries add colorful richness to our most recent issue.		Young Voices The lyrical language of five young poets will delight you.		Contributors Meet the authors and artists who make the Winter 2014 edition a rich, varied and engaging experience.

LETTER FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR POETRY         After the Ice Storm by Linda Strever         Waiting for a Diagnosis by Linda Strever         Anticipation by Penelope Scambly Schott         How to Survive the Loss of Your Best Friend by Diane Averill         Current Conditions by Carol Ellis         For a Hot Shot by Susan DeFreitas         Focal Distance by Jenna Thompson         Bridge by Jennifer Liberts Weinberg         Motherhood by Elizabeth Stoessl         Nice Girl Regrets by Pattie Palmer Baker         Lost Child Lullabye by Tiah Lindner Rephael         To Inhabit the Body by Willa Schneberg         Love Letter by Annie Lightheart PROSE         Like Water and Stones by B.E. Scully         Messages by Mary Mandeville         Fear Jars by Jessica Zisa         Pie by Susan Lehman         Confinement by Valerie Wagner ART         Where the Buffalo and Unicorn Once Roamed by Katie Todd         Midwestern Dreamin' by Katie Todd         Monday's Child by Sarah Fagan         Sweet Tea by Sarah Fagan         The Daydream by Kendall Madden         Beatrice by Kendall Madden YOUNG VOICES         Chinese Mangos by Sophia Mautz         The Bridge by Kate LeBlanc         Ephemeral by Jillian Briglia         The River by Sheila Panyam         Compost by Sophia Mautz CONTRIBUTORS