Flying Island

The Blueberry Hill Pancake House parking lot on the East side of town is where I picked up my laptop from the forensic specialist, plus the flashdrive of Lydea and her girlfriends, the pornographic clips my husband the pastor had downloaded onto my computer six days before he sent the letter to his congregation promising with confidence that there is nothing scandalous about our divorce. --by Wendy Vergoz Bio: Wendy Vergoz is an assistant professor of English at Marian University. Her poems have appeared in  The Christian Century and Anglican Theological Review , and her poem "Unfinished, A Found Poem," written after 9/11, was read on the first anniversary of the attacks at churches in five different states. Vergoz participated in “Arts Kaleidoscope: Art, Poems, and Videos,” an exhibition of visual art and ekphrastic poems at Gallery 308 in Muncie, Indiana.

Filled With Ladders, the World by Wendy Vergoz My father’s hands hold metal legs, I on the ladder’s penultimate rung last-but-one-any-higher-too-high. My father’s hands hold metal legs, I scoop wet leaves from the rooftop gutter, first-house gutter, wet brown leaves, soft green moss. I pry the screen off, sharp,    slide my fingers underneath, my fingers which,     long ago held white string, Jacob’s ladder.      Strong-girl hands with slender fingers hold Cat’s Cradle, Jacob’s ladder she climbs from seeds, from the singing bell the ringing bell, the bicycle bell the sweet-girl voice counts the ball and jacks singing Jacob’s ladder, fingering string and jacks                    and feet lift from the ground            to jump the rope to count to sing to lift...

Anna’s Lament           And all at once a strange idea came to her: what if he had           ceased to love her?  Leo Tolstoy,  Anna Karenina To swim under iron and count, each day, the ways I am alone. No matter his touch, or not, no matter silence to my words. My nature, coreopsis, coreopsis in a world of stone. Too soon depleted, I choke on dried petals, drink morphine. Who knows such wounds, ignominy and a lost son? Wooden ties taunt, “What for?” and promise something new. I drop the red bag, drown my sullied body in an iron sea.             —by Wendy Vergoz Bio:  Wendy Vergoz is an assistant professor of English at Marian University. Her poems have appeared in  The Christian Century and Anglican Theological Review , and her poem "Unfinished, A Found Poem," written after 9/11, was read on the first ann...