
“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.)