The lone patrol car rolls.
A commercial trash truck
idles. Empty trains rattle
below. A stranger quick
draws a bird on brick.
Suspended without suspense,
time is elusive in limbo. Unseen
bottles clink, clatter into some
recycle bin. A woman scrapes
her garbage can to the curb.
No thrum from the great city.
I might be lost in the forest,
slogging through an all white
snowfall, or tied in the twisted
sheets of last night’s dream.
Gerald Wagoner's childhood was divided between eastern Oregon and Montana. After college he pursued a sculptor’s life in Portland Oregon. Since 1983 he lives in Brooklyn, NY. Gerald was a Studio-in-a-School Artist in Residence 1986-87 then taught Art and English for the NYC Department of Education from 1988 to 2017. 2018: Visiting Poet Residency: Brooklyn Navy Yard. 2019: Installation and poetry event The Tides of Time, Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse. 2021: Created and hosted the outdoor poetry reading series: A Persistence of Cormorants. Education: BA Creative Writing U of Montana, MA & MFA Sculpture, SUNY Albany, NY. Publications: Right Hand Pointing, Ocotillo Review, Passager Journal Contest Issue, BigCityLit, The Lake, What Rough Beast Coronavirus Edition/ Indolent Books, Coffin Bell. J-Journal, and Blue Mountain Review.