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      March 30, 2023JoyMelissa Madenski

      Image: “The Kitchen Goddess” by JoAnne Tucker. “Joy” was written by Melissa Madenski for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
      I used to say I felt like I was
      running to catch a train,
      a toddler in one arm, our boy
      hanging on to my jacket.
       
      I used to say we ran on marbles
      reaching for the train handle
      in the days after my husband’s
      sudden death. Our boy would say,
       
      You’re holding my hand too tight,
      it hurts. I wouldn’t allow
      our daughter’s feet to touch ground.
      Anything could happen.
       
      Then, one day, at the kitchen window,
      I looked out and watched our children
      play baseball with spruce cones and sticks,
      the dog leaping and twisting as cheerleader.
       
      And I mean this.       They shone.
      Shrubs behind them dropped glitter.
      The air bristled with light.
      The brilliant forest throbbed.
       
      And it lasted.
      And we danced away
      from that train.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “The best ekphrastic poems expand on their source image, pushing the experience in a new direction. ‘Joy’ does that by finding all-too real grounding for the rich symbolism of JoAnne Tucker’s painting. Rather than describe the woman dancing in the frying pan, the poem describes the emotion she represents—and through the otherwise unrelated metaphor of the train. As a result, the poem enriches the painting while the painting enriches the poem, as if the two pieces of art were bound in their own dance together, exploring the complex transition from the darkness of grief back to the brightness of joy.”

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