December 2022
Bio Note: Since 2004, I have run Dos Gatos Press with my husband David Meischen. I bring this up because we are currently seeking submissions for the fifth collection in our series, Poetry of the Southwestern United States, this one focused on “The Poetry in Prose.” Of course, I’d love to see submissions from the excellent poets of the Verse-Virtual community, several of whom we have published in the past two decades. Like editor Jim Lewis, we tend to be sticklers for following our guidelines, so please read the guidelines at our website (address above). My own poems this month are examples of poetry in prose, (two haibun) though not focused on the Southwest.
Delicious
A crisp red apple. An apple you’d bob your head in a tub for—nearing, missing, watching it sink back into the water. You keep trying, almost getting your mouth on it, your teeth in it—before it plops back under the surface.
junior high party
lip balm flavored
with saliva
Voyage to the Center of the Earth
It must have been cold or wet. Otherwise, I would have been reading on the stoop out front. Back when I could laze a day away, an entire book in one sitting. But I was alone in the cavern of the basement with a pocket-sized Jules Verne, surrounded by dark paneling and dank smells.
time for belief
underground worlds
I wanted to exist
©2022 Scott Wiggerman
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL