"Rain and Renewal" by Kelly Emmrich
Have I Loved You Enough by Jen Rouse
Why? like a downpour out of her mouth, but I am only a figment, a wisp in the garden. Small as
new blooms. She says, but you were sick. And I say, Yes, I still am. But I have never been. See, I am so
many other things. Now. Where I once planted anger, I sodden each bed with a kind of remorseful
pouring, my hands running down each row, now flooded, not nothing. I imagined a mountain,
verdant and wise. I dreamt and woke and cried out and tried to find the missing. In all of my
dreams, the mountain refuses. In all of my dreams, the anguish. Behemoth. Arms like moss and
moss sounds like what you want it to be. Soft, expansive—if you pull your hand back from moss,
the mountain will leave a question in your palm. Because questions whisper: Keep going. When no one
else tries. When you are the only one moving through the thick humid mist. When and when and
when…this drowning ends. Mountain whispers: Move forward.
new blooms. She says, but you were sick. And I say, Yes, I still am. But I have never been. See, I am so
many other things. Now. Where I once planted anger, I sodden each bed with a kind of remorseful
pouring, my hands running down each row, now flooded, not nothing. I imagined a mountain,
verdant and wise. I dreamt and woke and cried out and tried to find the missing. In all of my
dreams, the mountain refuses. In all of my dreams, the anguish. Behemoth. Arms like moss and
moss sounds like what you want it to be. Soft, expansive—if you pull your hand back from moss,
the mountain will leave a question in your palm. Because questions whisper: Keep going. When no one
else tries. When you are the only one moving through the thick humid mist. When and when and
when…this drowning ends. Mountain whispers: Move forward.
Read more of Jen Rouse's work in issue #40 of UtSQ.
Jen Rouse is the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cornell College. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Gulf Stream, Parentheses, Cleaver, Always Crashing, Mississippi Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and elsewhere. Rouse is a two-time finalist for the Charlotte Mew Prize. Headmistress Press has published her books Acid and Tender, CAKE, and Riding with Anne Sexton. Find her at jen-rouse.com and on Twitter @jrouse
Kelly Emmrich is an illustrator and animator living and working in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her work has appeared in the magazines Moonhood Magazine, Dream Noir, and Meat for Tea. She studied creative writing and animation at the University of Mary Washington. She is currently working as a beer label designer for a microbrewery in Afton, Virginia and also as a freelance animator and illustrator.
