By Jeffrey Harrison

Featured Art: “Storm Window” by Mateo Galvano

That’s my blood, I’d wager, dried
on the white lower panel of the storm door,
having dripped from some small cut
as I came in from working in the yard.
Who knows how long it’s been there,
or how the drop became a mark
more singular and graceful
than any I could have made on purpose,

yet seems (as I bend down
to look more closely) considered
and spontaneous at once—
two quick strokes, one curving up,
the other down, like a figure rendered
by a calligrapher’s brush, with ink
from my own body, as if beauty might come
from even the slightest wound.

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Jeffrey Harrison is the author of six books for poetry, including Between Lakes (Four Way Books, 2020) and Into Daylight (Tupelo Press, 2014) and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, and the Bogliasco Foundation. His poems have appeared in magazines and journals including The Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize volumes, and been set to music and performed at the National Opera Center, the Boston Athenaeum, and other venues.