December 2023
Shaun R. Pankoski
lilyandshaun@gmail.com
Bio Note: I am a retired county worker, two time breast cancer survivor and poet most recently from Volcano, Hawaii. I've lived on both coasts as well as the Midwest as an artist’s model, modern dancer, massage therapist and honorably discharged Air Force veteran. I've been published in Verse-Virtual and elsewhere, with upcoming poems in Gargoyle, Gyroscope and Poetry Breakfast. I make a mean corn chowder and by the time you read this, will have returned from my dream trip to Japan.

Taking the Ferry

I sit in the truck,
listening to the radio,
out of the weather. Later, 
I haunt the interior deck 
with coffee and a book.

The formica tables 
and naugahyde seats 
are a salmon and aqua vision 
straight out of the sixties.
It's warm inside, with people

and chatter and the sense
that one is going someplace,
doing something. 
Predictable, productive. Still,
something pulls me out to the bow,

a crazy idea for winter on the Sound.
Grey water, grey skies, grey gulls.
I turn my face, not to the shore,
but upward - to a salty, freezing sky,
emptying my mind, finally feeling alive.

You Go Build a Snowman, I'll Go Read a Book

Fun is subjective.
Like bad, good. As in weather.
Our respective joys
are knocking. Let's each answer,
and dress for the occasion.

Wintering

I am a rook,
returning to roost
in the tree 
that is your body-
to build a nest
around your heart,
to wait out the thaw,
to look for signs 
of spring.
©2023 Shaun R. Pankoski
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