Van Ghosted

They say there’s much you can do with
stale bread.

Panzanella, bruschetta, crostini.
Croutons, bread pudding.

How like spring, 
new and fresh, it goes quickly,

and then, the blistering oven 
of summer is here.

But, how do you salvage a poem, like sunrise,
so fleeting you can never seem to catch it in time?

Like manna.
Here and gone.

I saw it today, etched into the glass of a window
with an epitaph:

Your wings were ready, but my heart was not.
I see how it is.  

I glimpsed you briefly, soft-robed phantom,
boarding a train to somewhere else,

orphaned, like my last vanished poem,
not a breadcrumb in sight, 

on into the starry night.


© 2025 Jennifer Wagner


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"Your wings were ready, but my heart was not." - Amelia Hutchins

When you just don’t jot it down in time.  Know the feeling?  Maybe it will return, when it, and I, am ready. ;)