Vivian Wagner

Birdhouse

The wren parents

teach their babies

about abundance—

bringing delivery after

delivery of worm and

gnat, bits of the world

from air to mouth

in an endless chain

of instants, each

strengthening the tiny

feathering bodies,

readying them

to step out of the

nest and fly toward

the mysterious source

of all that plenty.

At the Con

We build a fort and fight off Vikings,

waiting for a late reckoning.

We scythe our way through fields, trying

to survive plagues, starvation, and fear.

We fly through galaxies not our own,

forming futures by other stars.

We try to solve a murder, using psychic

powers to read blurred cards.

We are all this and more, our lives turned

cardboard, our monsters become small.

Bio: Vivian Wagner lives in New Concord, Ohio, where she’s an associate professor of English at Muskingum University. Her 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 three poetry chapbooks: The Village (Aldrich Press-Kelsay Books), Making (Origami Poems Project), and Curiosities (Unsolicited Press).