Red Wand

By Sandra Simonds

Sometimes I try to make poetry but mostly
   I try to earn a living. There's something still living
in every urn, I am sure of it. The ash moves
     around inside the vase like the magnetic filings that make
the moustache of Wooly Willy. Maybe a new face counts
     as reincarnation. The wand says, "I'll be your ostrich,
if you'll be my swan." In this life, what did I do wrong?
I think my heart is a magnet too. It attracts anything
that attracts joy like the summer grasses the swans track through.
        OMG, how in love I am with joy and with yours—how I know
that adding to it would only take it further off course,
        off its precarious center, so for once, I won't touch it.
I will stand wand-length away—let it
     glide stupidly on its weightless line, without me.