By Vivian Wagner
The air conditioner whirs
like a dinosaur,
while groundhogs
beneath it,
playing or fighting
or both, while
cardinals chirp
their version
of the day’s events.
And all of us, bird and beast
and machine, are here
in this day together,
living what we can of it
while watching it pass.
Vivian Wagner lives in New Concord, Ohio, where she’s an associate professor of English at Muskingum University. Her work has appeared in Slice Magazine, Muse/A Journal, Forage Poetry Journal, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Gone Lawn, The Atlantic, Narratively, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Zone 3, Bending Genres, and other publications. She’s the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music(Citadel-Kensington); a full-length poetry collection, Raising (Clare Songbirds Publishing House); and three poetry chapbooks: The Village (Aldrich Press-Kelsay Books), Making (Origami Poems Project), Curiosities (Unsolicited Press), and Spells of the Apocalypse (forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing House).
© 2020 Vivian Wagner
