3 Poems by Miriam Sagan

Equinox on Wednesday

inside the koan of snow
    pouring down
shadow's calligraphy
across whiteness
    expanse past midnight

a gray hawk
and these flakes
fall through branches

and even later
an old man
comes with his plow

my dream has no horses
no hope of rescue
no successful
crossing of borders

I called out in the mist
wait! it's me!

I was sick in a bed
with white pillows
unable to speak

I painted this scroll
all vertical
narrative

and took your arm
in the street
my skinny girl
now that we were speaking again
after all these years.


Cardinal

when I dreamed at 14
of a red bird
little did I know
I was dreaming of you

dreamed of a blue ball
of watered shattered out of my hands
and a red bird
flying into a white tree

little did I know
about giving the body
without the heart
or the heart
without the body

possible
impossible
little did I know
till  you told me
at 60

now often
you dreamed
of red birds
flying this far north
in the snow.


AEIOU

At the neon boneyard
a heap of
disconnected letters
a pile of As
THE SAHARA and fake "Roman" E
from Caesar's. Deaf,
I might spell into
your palm, blind
take your hand, and speechless
run a tongue along the sentence of your lips.

A silver slipper
the size of my car
lifted on a pole above the strip--
as for the Lady, with her globe and obelisk
her ship in the desert
sails full of fortunate wind.

I'll count myself lucky
to have as my first language
one with vowels.


Bionote

Miriam Sagan is the author of over 25 books, including SEVEN PLACES IN AMERICA: A Poetic Sojourn (Sherman Asher, 2012). She founded and runs the creartive writing program at Santa Fe Community College. msagan1035@aol.com