The Critical Point Home

Soul Sky                                
Sara Henceroth

In a past life, she calls her self Soul Sky
  flying high (on invisible wings)
    through strawberry-scented smoke screens
      alongside Linus and Lucy and Virginia Woolf
        thanks to a peppermint patty laced with a little
          poetic starlight
            for clarity and illumination of mind

She soars on faltering currents through ever changing skies
  on a sigh (of sacred obscenities)
    from the universal voice of a dirty goddess
      infusing honey colored wisdom with
        whisperings of millennia past and
            ancient futures
                 that may or may not exist

She casts a net woven with cattails and persistent dreams
   and an emerald lie (or two)
      in the hopes of snaring the last wooly mammoth on earth
         instead she finds herself with fistfuls of snapdragons
             and fireflies with a few death’s
                head moths
                     thrown in for good measure

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Kaleidoscope
Laurie A. Evans

I am like a kaleidoscope
My oranges, reds, and yellows
Scattered with greens, blues, and purples
Reflect off mirrors
Forming images
For you to see.

You hold me to the light
And look through me.

You twist, turn, and change me,
Never seeing what truly makes me me.

Maybe if you take me apart
Touch my colors, and
Look in my mirrors
You can understand what I am.

I am only afraid
That when you do
You’ll leave my pieces
For someone else
To pick up
And put together again.

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Waterfall
Shannon Petty

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Raku Swirl Vase
Collette Zielinski

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The Day Life Changes
Janelle McLain

The smell of comet and bleach made her gag as she looked around the bathroom to pass time. The fluorescent light bulbs reflected off the squeaky clean, bleached tiles, and created a light show from the reflection in the mirror.  She sat numb, expressionless. The cold, porcelain toilet seat sent chills throughout her body, forcing the short hairs on her arms and legs to stand at attention while small goose bumps slowly took over her body.  Like a painted portrait, she sat and stared at her reflection, mesmerized by what she saw staring back. She couldn’t blink or move. The room, the air, her life, was still.
           
“What does it say?” a distant voice called.
           
She didn’t move. Her eyes, fixed on her reflection, filled with water as tears poured down her face and plummeted to her thighs.
           
Her eyes darted towards the door at the sound of a soft knock.  She whispered, “Come in.”
           
The door slowly opened and two round eyes peeked into the bathroom.  Softly he repeated, “What does it say?”
           
She didn’t answer.  Slowly, her eyes crept towards her reflection and more tears fell. He stepped into the room and sat on the side of the bathtub with his hands on her thighs. She handed him a slim white stick with a purple cap. Puzzled, he stared at it.  He picked up the box next to her feet and read the instructions on the back.
           
“There are two pink lines,” he mumbled.
           
He stood, pulling her up with him.  She leaned forward and pulled panties up her thighs. “What am I going to do?  I mean, how did this happen?”  She sobbed as more tears rolled down her cheeks.
           
He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her forehead, “this is a blessing-no matter how you look at it right now.”  He ran his fingers through her hair and gently rubbed her stomach.  “You’re carrying my baby.”
           
She looked up at him and said frantically, “How am I supposed to do this?  I am too young - I haven’t even started my life.  I don’t even know where I’ll end up in a month or a year.”
           
“Calm down, everything will be okay.”
           
They stood there for a few moments and held each other.  The sound of her winded sobs echoed throughout the bathroom as she cried into his shoulder.

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Disorderly
Emily L. Stokes

my body shakes to a violent rhythm when his lips hold
mine in a locked embrace they are raw after his rough
chin bathes my own in forceful passion they are
bright red like a poisoned apple swollen with
magic his caresses tingle my skin and I am
wrapped in a winter flame by one of his
great hands like a summer wind he
moves so serenely and controls
his direction unexpectedly the
strength in his arms is a pillar
on which I can lay to rest
without fear of falling
into a deep and
uncontrollable
insecurity.

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