Special shout out to one of my favorite artists and friends, Tyler Hays. I used his watercolor painting for a poetry assignment this semester: write a poem responding to a piece of art. This is one of the few poems from my semester-long poetry collection that I can stamp with a gold sticker. I'm proud of it. Thanks for inspiring me with you art, Tyler!
The Thing About Wishes
by Heather D. Moline
The thing about wishes is that they come free
from genies
on birthday cakes
in a fountain full of pennies.
The thing about wishes is that they are bendy.
They squish and they squash into something
so unlike the something you wished.
Link pinkies with your wishes like a childhood swear.
Brush out the snarls and weave wishes through your hair.
Hold wishes between your fingers
like a flickering fly—
don’t pinch them too tight,
remember
they’re alive.
And just like the bugs you caught in the dark,
wishes want to flitter
and don’t live well in jars.
If given the chance, they’ll scatter and sneak
like crunchy red leaves hitching rides with the breeze.
Once they are snubbed, they leave you alone
with responsible, grown up things that you chose:
taxes,
terrorists,
saturated fats,
earthquakes and heartbreaks
and terminal disease.
The thing about wishes is that they come free
from genies
on birthday cakes
in a fountain full of pennies
but wishes will go if you wish them away,
swept up by the wind and the gray.
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