Sometimes,
lights in the sky
marry birches,
circling them
as if wishing
to come
down, don bark,
and root, too,
in dark soil.
By morning,
though, the marriage
dissolves; the lights
disappear, and the trees
remain, half-
remembering
strange dreams,
and holding onto
an earth that only
seems steady.
–
Vivian Wagner’s 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 four poetry chapbooks: The Village (Aldrich Press-Kelsay Books), Making (Origami Poems Project), Curiosities (Unsolicited Press), and Spells of the Apocalypse (Thirty West Publishing House).
© 2022, Vivian Wagner
Halfway Down the Stairs 