the space between us
for now we see through a glass dimly
but then we shall see face to face
so said a man called paul in holy writ
what manner of crystal ball did he peer into
and see how I wait today by a window to
glimpse like mottled koi beneath murky water
broken eyes familiar and strange
looking back at me through a glass dimly
that is me watching myself watch others
in a house of mirrors set in virtual rows
where I can touch my own face and
not feel a thing—but the space between us
and the tenderest of hopes that
for now we see through a glass dimly
but then we shall see face to face
.
Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, NC. Her poems have been published by Amethyst Review, The New Verse News, Panoply, Poets Reading the News, and Writing in a Woman’s Voice.