Lori Bedell has feared rejection for decades—sitting on yellow notepads, computer files, and journals loaded with unfinished treadings. She’s always been one of those people who wants to do so much that a commitment in one direction seemed like a rejection of the other, and so she was paralyzed by the idea of making the wrong choice and did nothing. At 41, this had to stop. Lori has been teaching communication at the college level with an unfinished Ph.D. for 15 years. In addition to writing things that she’s generally afraid to let anyone read, she loves helping people—especially her two daughters—see how they fit in a large, complex, deeply flawed world. She is saddened by hatred and poverty, encouraged by flashes of goodness in the most unlikely of people, and in love with her husband. She hopes that she has the guts to continue to share her work, and thanks the editors for the encouragement here.

Two Poems (November 20, 2009. Issue 11.)

Circleville Road

the sssshhhh of the rain now passed,
leaves quiet and I am afraid to move and interrupt what I believe
is a religious moment for the earth
it is breathing and absorbing and digesting all that the sky has sent it;
bright and deep hues of green sketched with soaked bark
like charcoal in a drawing
are surprised by the bright whites of dogwoods’
delicate silent fireworks;
this moment is a newborn's first gasp of air, a mother’s breast,
a breadth of possibility and I,
only a witness,
my path already lain;
here newness invites a reconsideration
that I haven’t the daring to undertake

Identity

no grasp of her hair color
until a fifth grade photo makes plain the auburn hue—
despite the evidence, despite the freckles and ritual sunburn
that tell her she’s earned it,
she doubts and disregards, denied an image of reference,
and undeserving of a color so unique in her ambiguous, average life—
off her bike and in the Quik Check she shops from her list
and pretends not to wonder
if any of the women, ordering and collecting
their white-paper-wrapped-meats
recognize themselves in her face and her age,
as she lingers to be visible, available for discovery by a similar-haired someone;
milk and bread and chip-chopped ham, then out the door,
another opportunity to be found alone, passed.