My father claims he knew at first sight that my mother was the one for him. Seven decades passed since he met my mother on the steps of Saint Viator’s Church the afternoon of the eight-grade dance. He took her hand. She accepted.

heaven
somehow he knows
he’ll get there

Some people remember things better than they were; others remember them worse. I would never have guessed my father would fall into the former category. I have a hard time picturing him as a romantic. Mainly I knew the strict Marine, air tense as lightning, threats of sending me to military school.

one, two, three...
learning my numbers
counting out licks

Now my father talks about greeting my mother in heaven, about soon reaching for her hand again when they’re reunited. He didn’t used to be as sentimental as those Hallmark movies they watched every night till her passing.

urban renewal
razing the past
of childhood

Scott Wiggerman

A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Albuquerque poet Scott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets (Purple Flag), Presence (Pecan Grove Press), and Vegetables and Other Relationships (Plain View Press); and the editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats I and II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry (Dos Gatos Press, of which he is co-founder with David Meischen).

In recent years, Scott’s love of poetic form has moved largely into Japanese forms, and haiku and art have become more central to his work as an artist of both the page and canvas. For more, see Scott Wiggerman’s Poetry Pages.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Wiggerman’s introduction to his curated collection of haiku on the theme of the LGBTQIA+ experience, for National Poetry Month: Haiku of the Day, April 2023; scroll down a bit to access the slide show for April

⚡ The Story of Fire, haibun by Wiggerman in Issue 16 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (January 2023)