Today's poem is by Sara Moore Wagner

Anti-Pastoral
       

Don't retreat, I say to the screen,
to the trees and sloping hillside leading
to the lake I call Magic Lake. In Ohio,
born landlocked as a river, I want that still
body of water, the ripples mimicking
that slow beat inside. No, I won't die,
I say to a morning so cold all the eggs
have frozen in all the nests. Is it this quiet
where you are. Can you hear the birds trot
the naked limbs of the oak trees. Can you see
where the water touches the wood and is transformed
into a blanket of leaves. I am not fallen,
am not falling yet. I am not made
thick skinned enough to weather this
world, so I close the window and lock it.
Look birds, I can lock it. Look sky, I am
inside, have seen what you do to a hawthorn,
have seen every fallen piece of timber—those
are my bridges. I will walk them home.

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Copyright © 2023 Sara Moore Wagner All rights reserved
from Swan Wife
Cider Press Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission