Untitled (Here)
by Paul-Victor Winters
A certain gray bird, circling, taunting frogs. Wait, wait, she says to a man tossing nuts to ducks in a brackish pond. Wait, wait, she says. Wait, she says to the man, now counting his coins. Wait to the man, now preparing for bed and wait, wait upon his waking. Wait for pancakes. Wait for the muddied boots to dry. Wait for the stacking of firewood. Wait, wait, says the bird to the man who says nothing. Wait to burn trash in an old steel drum, pockmarked and storied. Wait, says the bird to the man who says nothing on Sunday and again on Monday. Wait, wait on New Year’s Day, and again in February. There’s the man walking his path, a certain gray pellucid bird darting about in broad sweeps, whistling, trilling like a damaged nerve.
Paul-Victor Winters is a public school teacher, occasional adjunct professor and writer living in southern New Jersey. He works for Murphy Writing of Stockton University and for the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation’s Poetry Program. Poems appear in anthologies from Jane Street Press, Serving House Books, and others, and in numerous journals, including KYSO Flash and Eyedrum Periodically.
What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of this piece? The first version of this poem happened in a mad rush while a friend and I were on a little getaway in Canajoharie, New York. Spurts-of-inspiration poems rarely occur to me, but here we are.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
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