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Jean Wiggins
Fear of Diving
Seasons pass beyond our control
like a plant sprouting from seed.
Will it survive? What does it need?
Someone you have loved
shows up at the most inconvenient time,
on the way in or out,
leaving or arriving.
Your inner poet attempts reconciliation
while your college student adult
says "What the hell!"
Then -- the novelist steps in
trying to get it all to mean something.
She says, "You think I'm a computer you can program
any old way you want."
He says, "You think I'm a drill instructor
wanting you to follow me."
She says, "You think you're an organist
playing some grand theme all your own."
Nothing is so happy after the rain
as a robin pulling worms from the earth
on a college green where we met,
or might have, long ago.
Somewhere there are red roses and perfume,
sparkling wine, someone
breathing your breath,
living the life
you won't claim.
Poetry Reading
The tall man
who wrote short poems
which he read in a voice
so low
that no one heard
had long orgasms
and a short memory,
loved long hair and tall women,
long walks and short critiques,
the long and short of it being
he always ended up in a bar
deciding how to make the move
from C to her B flat
where he could remember
how long to hold the note.
©2006 by Jean Wiggins
Jean Wiggins writes from Huntsville, Alabama. Over the past thirty years, she has published poems in many journals and small magazines. In late 2005, Windhover, a publication of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, published her short story, "Where Real People Live." She continues to work on writing poems and short stories.
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