Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Mar/Apr 2015 • Vol. XXXVII No. 2 • Poetry |

The Slit

Thought I saw, at the days start,
       a door open in an oak tree—
a vertical slit, a magical port—
           a figure stood there,
then disappeared—
       I could neither follow
   nor lie about the journey.

See how the light fills chamber and halls
       in the woods here?
The suggestion makes a church,
           narthex, nave, a place
for worship if you trust
       where your eyes
   take you, up and up.

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