Inside the Random Patterns Form
Remember the day we drove to,
was it Big Sur,
when a sudden sandstorm
assailed us?
What was once a beach rose up
and battered us.
It felt for a moment as if a random force
would shear away our skin.
We squeezed between giant boulders for shelter―
and we laughed.
Surmountable threats almost a joy, then.
I keep going back to it now,
the day we walked into a blast
of mad particles
yet imagined ourselves polished smooth
as a soapstone.
I’ve read that 99.99% of the body is atoms.
What is a thing but a congregation?
It’s true that lately I digress,
which is to say
my thoughts float loose in my mind
then slowly form into words.
Each day the world falls further into chaos.
Yet we cohere.
Jeanne Wagner’s latest book, One Needful Song, was the winner of the 2024 Catamaran Prize.
She is also the author of four chapbooks and three previous full-length collections. Her work has
appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Nimrod and The Southern Review. A retired tax
accountant, she lives in Kensington, California.