"Home of the Brave" by Matthew Fertel
Ali Beheler | Two poems
Thresholding
In the early days, still getting used to your eyes
on me, the newness not of the eyes but the on,
the flung-open door of every inch of my body
in light like the closet I never went into anymore,
had started to ignore, and then I’m standing beside
you in the doorway, “so that’s what you’ve done
with the place” I find myself saying to me, facing
the mess, only then realizing it’s a whole room,
it even has a window, and how much I could do
in there, how much I really wanted to then, awake
to its possibility, looking at you at my side looking
in like that: how I’d forgotten a room could be
something to live in, something to see, walking
across it, into it, feeling your eyes on me.
on me, the newness not of the eyes but the on,
the flung-open door of every inch of my body
in light like the closet I never went into anymore,
had started to ignore, and then I’m standing beside
you in the doorway, “so that’s what you’ve done
with the place” I find myself saying to me, facing
the mess, only then realizing it’s a whole room,
it even has a window, and how much I could do
in there, how much I really wanted to then, awake
to its possibility, looking at you at my side looking
in like that: how I’d forgotten a room could be
something to live in, something to see, walking
across it, into it, feeling your eyes on me.
Illusion of Depth
after Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet
It was just the two of us but it was always three
when I was across from you at the table, say.
Your open mouth of eyes your wine-dark mouth
of wine ready to drink however I poured out
and when I poured it was better than me that slid
into that glass in front of us, in my seat but just
a little to the side where I could feel more than
see her when you looked at me, the better one,
the slightly better me, the slightly closer
to who you saw, who I saw as the double
of my exposure, floating there, in the fluid curve
of the swirl in the glass, the swill around your mouth
taking me in, the sliding into and out of this seat,
all night for hours, dizzying. Her and me.
It was just the two of us but it was always three
when I was across from you at the table, say.
Your open mouth of eyes your wine-dark mouth
of wine ready to drink however I poured out
and when I poured it was better than me that slid
into that glass in front of us, in my seat but just
a little to the side where I could feel more than
see her when you looked at me, the better one,
the slightly better me, the slightly closer
to who you saw, who I saw as the double
of my exposure, floating there, in the fluid curve
of the swirl in the glass, the swill around your mouth
taking me in, the sliding into and out of this seat,
all night for hours, dizzying. Her and me.
Ali Beheler (she/her/hers) teaches at Hastings College in Hastings, NE, by day and cycles sonnets by night. She has most recently published in Plainsongs and Neologism, and was a writer-in-residence in September 2022 and May 2023 at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula, CA.
Matthew Fertel is a Sacramento-based photographer who has worked in the Photography department at Sierra College since 2004. Before that, he was a fine art auction house catalog photographer in San Francisco for over 10 years.
Matthew's current work focuses on capturing the minutiae he encounters in his daily life. He seeks to expose the hidden beauty in the everyday objects that make up the landscape of our existence. Going to the same locations over days, months and years allows him to capture images under different lighting and weather conditions, and to see objects change over long or short periods of time. There is art hidden everywhere if you learn to see it.
Learn more at his website and on Instagram.
Matthew's current work focuses on capturing the minutiae he encounters in his daily life. He seeks to expose the hidden beauty in the everyday objects that make up the landscape of our existence. Going to the same locations over days, months and years allows him to capture images under different lighting and weather conditions, and to see objects change over long or short periods of time. There is art hidden everywhere if you learn to see it.
Learn more at his website and on Instagram.
