This selection, chosen by guest editor Alexis Ivy, is from Power Point by Jane Muschenetz (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024).
MAKE BELIEF
Let us pretend, just for this lifetime, that we are not angels
that we have no wings, no powers beyond the ordinary
to perceive, to dance with universes, that our senses
(being only human) cannot taste possibility and time
as anything but linear and fixed, cannot mix truths
bursting in and out of existence, varying in color,
wavelengths, and dimension—infinite, nuanced,
burning with intention, the multifaceted
exponential potential of all things,
eludes us! Let us despair and fret
over our impediments and
limitations, as if they
were reality and
immortality—
Did you forget already?
Did you pretend too well?
Jane Muschenetz Recognized in 2023 by San Diego County for excellence in poetry performance, Jane has appeared on KPBS Midday Edition and in numerous publications. Her debut chapbook, All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents (Kelsay Books, 2023), won the 2024 California Press Women Communications Prize in Creative Verse and the 2024 San Diego Writers Festival Short Poetry Collection of the Year. An emerging writer and artist, Jane’s additional honors include multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations and The Good Life Review Honeybee Poetry Prize (2022). Connect with Jane and more of her work at www.PalmFrondZoo.com
Alexis Ivy is a 2018 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Poetry. She is the author of Romance with Small-Time Crooks (BlazeVOX [books], 2013), and Taking the Homeless Census (Saturnalia Books, 2020) which won the 2018 Saturnalia Editors Prize. She is co-editor of Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (West Virginia University Press, 2023). A recent resident of the Sundress Academy for the Arts, she lives in her hometown Boston, working as an advocate for the homeless, and teaching in the PoemWorks community.
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