The wind, concerned about the weather’s fizz,
decides to convolute itself in shapes.
The wind blows questions to the hill, a quiz
as purple, ripe, and juicy as the grapes
squeezed massively to fill the shepherd’s crook.
Just how much longer must the wind endure
the heavy birds and planes, the pilot’s look?
Once wind was there, amazing, loving, pure,
and now, the wind blows hard, and now there’s none,
and fruit falls faster than the world can eat.
Wind wonders whether pain has lost or won.
Wind smashes windows on a city street.
Wind wraps her wings around a sculptor’s bust,
but worries what she finds will turn to rust.
—
Mary Meriam studied poetry at Columbia University (MFA) and Bennington College (BA). She works as an editor and publisher of lesbian poetry and art, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas. Her most recent poetry collection is Pools of June (Exot Books, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Literary Imagination, Literary Matters, Poetry, Post Road, Prelude, Rattle, Subtropics, and The Poetry Review.
