SurVision Magazine

Cheery


Big Bird visits me sometimes,
shaking his sun-yellow feathers
with a flourish, saying good morning,
asking how I'm doing, what
I'm up to, how things have been.
Then he asks, "Where are the kids?"
but all I can do is shrug and
look out the window at the
few remaining leaves rattling
on November's trees.




Revolving


I left the desert base
because I wanted peace,
wanted something other than
the prickly violence of missiles.
I landed, though, in a place
full of shotguns and pistols and,
worse, pointed words.
We circle back to pain and
beauty, return always to
what we know.






Vivian Wagner is an associate professor of English at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. Her work has appeared in The Galway Review, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Zone 3, and other publications. She is also the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel) and a poetry chapbook, The Village (forthcoming from Aldrich Press).