Phyllis Wax

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. From the window in front of her desk, she observes an abundance of migrating birds, several generations of turkeys, and the occasional fox, deer, and raccoon. Some of those make their way into her poetry.

Meal Time

They traverse the landscape

like a caravan of camels

crossing a desert,

a procession of twelve, heads held high,

moving steadily and sedately

through the woods and weeds,

not headed for a caravanserai

but for the corn

my neighbor scattered

beneath a large maple,

where they break ranks and revert to being

a flock of turkeys, pecking, pecking.

— Phyllis Wax