This selection, chosen by guest editor Alexis Ivy, is from Power Point by Jane Muschenetz (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024).
A cup of the Sun’s core produces ~60 milliwatts of thermal energy. By volume . . . less than that of a human [350 mW]. In a sense, you are hotter than the Sun—there’s just not as much of you.
—Henry Reich, Minute Physics
YOU ARE 600% HOTTER THAN THE SUN
Speaking roughly, in terms of heat
generated per every human inch, you give
off more milliwatts—surge/energy. Only
the Sun is bigger . . . it matters.
We are all blinded
by love, the expanding/contracting
universe is just another metaphor
for longing, and life—its own purpose.
How dazzling, this science!
Consider falling for a physicist—
the painstakingly slow way they undress
mathematical mysteries,
talk about bodies in motion
gets me every time—space
—continuum, part, particle—
Atomic. Incandescent! You
are, pound-for-pound, more Life-Source,
more Bomb, more Season-Spinning Searing Center
Heart/Engine/Radiating Nuclear Dynamic
than the Sun. Can’t look directly
in the mirror? Small Wonder! Imagine—
none of us powerless.
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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