{"id":3958,"date":"2013-09-05T19:36:59","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T19:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=3958"},"modified":"2022-11-03T13:41:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T17:41:58","slug":"the-radiant","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/the-radiant\/","title":{"rendered":"The Radiant"},"content":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″]\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

paper \u2022 60 pages \u2022 14.95
\nISBN-10:\u00a0\u00a01-884800-49-1<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/column]<\/p>\n

The Radiant<\/em><\/h1>\n

Cynthia Huntington<\/h2>\n

Winner of the\u00a02001 Levis Poetry Prize<\/em>
\nselected by Susan Mitchell<\/p>\n

THE RAPTURE<\/p>\n

I remember standing in the kitchen, stirring bones for soup,
\nand in that moment, I became another person.<\/p>\n

It was an early spring evening, the air California mild.
\nOutside, the eucalyptus was bowing compulsively<\/p>\n

over the neighbor’s motor home parked in the driveway.
\nThe street was quiet for once, and all the windows were open.<\/p>\n

Then my right arm tingled, a flutter started under the skin.
\nFire charged down the nerve of my leg; my scalp exploded<\/p>\n

in pricks of light. I shuddered and felt like laughing;
\nit was exhilarating as an earthquake. A city on fire<\/p>\n

after an earthquake. Then I trembled and my legs shook,
\nand every muscle gripped so I fell and lay on my side,<\/p>\n

a bolt driven down my skull into my spine. My legs were
\nswimming against the linoleum, and I looked up at the underside<\/p>\n

of the stove, the dirty places where the sponge didn’t reach.
\nEverything collapsed there in one place, one flash of time.<\/p>\n

There in my body. In the kitchen at six in the evening, April.
\nA wooden spoon clutched in my hand, the smell of chicken broth.<\/p>\n

And in that moment I knew everything that would come after:
\nthe vision was complete as it seized me. Without diagnosis,<\/p>\n

without history, I knew that my life was changed.
\nI seemed to have become entirely myself in that instant.<\/p>\n

Not the tests, examinations in specialists’ offices, not
\nthe laboratory procedures: MRI, lumbar puncture, electrodes<\/p>\n

pasted to my scalp, the needle scraped along the sole of my foot,
\nfollowing one finger with the eyes, EEG, CAT scan, myelogram.<\/p>\n

Not the falling down or the blindness and tremors, the stumble
\nand hiss in the blood, not the lying in bed in the afternoons.<\/p>\n

Not phenobarbitol, amitriptylene, prednisone, amantadine, ACTH,
\ncortisone, cytoxan, copolymer, baclofen, tegretol, but this:<\/p>\n

Six o’clock in the evening in April, stirring bones for soup.
\nAn event whose knowledge arrived whole, its meaning taking years<\/p>\n

to open, to seem a destiny. It lasted thirty seconds, no more.
\nThen my muscles unlocked, the surge and shaking left my body<\/p>\n

and I lay still beneath the white high ceiling. Then I got up
\nand stood there, quiet, alone, just beginning to be afraid.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] paper \u2022 60 pages \u2022 14.95 ISBN-10:\u00a0\u00a01-884800-49-1 Add to Cart [\/column] The Radiant Cynthia Huntington Winner of the\u00a02001 Levis Poetry Prize selected by Susan Mitchell THE RAPTURE I remember standing in the kitchen, stirring bones for soup, and in that moment, I became another person. It was an early spring evening, the air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3958","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3958"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18458,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3958\/revisions\/18458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}