Agnes McDonald is a Wilmington poet, teacher of writing, and poetry editor of CCV. Write to Agnes at amcdonald@carolcivicvoice.org.

 

Poetry by John L. Godwin

    Woman Dreaming Pisgah

 

I didn’t sit well on fences

                                         gazing into coves

As far as coves would let me,

 

My body wasn’t made to

                                        perch like a hawk

On a splintered fence post,

 

I was a sight for drivers on

                                       the switchback,

Better gawkers kept their minds

 

Instead of  dreaming wide

                                      into this cove

Toward Pisgah or to where

 

They could at least imagine

                                     Pisgah, peak

Snow-shaggy as just-tongued

 

Cat fur, I‘d have been better

                                     taking my mulling

 Back indoors. If even the mere

 

Thought  of moving on wailed

                                      to me from deep

Inside the wind that blows out

 

 Fires and starts them too, I’d have let

                                            this notion go.

The monster heater wouldn’t have talked

 

But when I dumped the heaping ash box ,

                                     ashes mottled gray

As dogwood bark, a few coals winked

 

To hint what I might do.

 

 

                          —Agnes McDonald, 2007

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