This selection, chosen by guest editor Alexis Ivy, is from Power Point by Jane Muschenetz (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024).
THE EARTH REMEMBERS HER TEENAGE YEARS
How many times she almost destroyed herself.
How she was nothing but molten, constantly flaring, combustible—
how she just kept erupting
under the weight of her own gravity.
How alone she felt
in what she thought was the darkness
between herself and the galaxy that birthed her,
without even the moon yet for company.
How she beckoned every rock hurtling through space
to make a home of her.
How she cratered, even as she became more solid
and cooled . . . eventually.
How slow it all felt then, those millennia
which now seem only an instant, looking back
in awe of herself, of that unquenchable fire
still buried deep in her core.
How she watches us, the life she brought forth
despite everything.
How she forgives our own endless thrashing.
How she wishes (knowing already) it could be easier.
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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