“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”

— Rita Dove

This poem is by a friend’s daughter’s friend. The poet, Cory Hutchinson-Reuss, was at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the time this poem was written. She received her PhD in English at the University of Iowa. Knowing my love of poetry, my friend shared some of Hutchinson-Reuss’ poems with me. What a great find—and a great new poet. She takes a moment, “intention into contact,” and creates this suspension of time and touch.

Or If We Are Made of Arrows

by Cory Hutchinson-Reuss

Hands grope

along the girders,

Fingers reach

for the hinges

to determine

the angle of embrace.

Or if we are made

of arrows

that move outward

to become

part of others,

breathing or inanimate,

what trajectory

will translate intention

into contact?

When he passes her

the apricot jelly,

when she lends her neighbors

a pulley or wrench,

when the crane swivels

its trestled neck,

we love what we are made of.

We lean, arch

toward the gestures

of others,

to the very fact

of their distance.

Charged interval

of possibility

between bow-slung

arrow and eye,

ball and socket,

socket and bulb.

A loom of fingers.

The mechanics,

the potential,

of their devotion.

(Image found here.)