Poem by Dan Lewis

Kleptomaniac

Any name you prefer. First
at the gate? Gratitude?
The longest
journey begins. As if you might
carry something with you. But
the eyes of the guards are ever
watchful. Even the air we breathe. Look,
here is a picture of the world
at its beginning; see how the light
embraces everything. Imagine
what it would have been to live
here. Notice that she
whose dreams you think
ensnared you, is not
in the picture.

Dan Lewis lives in Worcester, MA. He is the author of This Garden and two chapbooks, Tickets for the Broken Year, and Iconospheres. Winner of the 2012 Frank O’Hara Prize, he has appeared in The Cortland Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bombay Gin, Diner, Blue Unicorn, and others.

Art can illuminate even the most elusive and difficult to comprehend ideas. Visual rules and tightly codified visual metaphors help scientists communicate complex ideas mostly amongst themselves, but they can also become barriers to new ideas and insights. Dr. Regina Valluzzi’s images are abstracted and diverged from the typical rules and symbols of scientific illustration and visualization; they provide an accessible window into the world of science for both scientists and non-scientists.