A POEM BY JASMINE DREAME WAGNER


          FIFTH METATARSAL OF WIRE AND IMPULSE


          I bartered all my words for sweetness
          in times of fever and pelt. Forgive me, or
          I will sing for you until you do. How I wanted you
          to win the discounted timeshare
          in Fantasia, how I wanted
          you, the calumny of mockingbirds, the Atlantic
          Ocean, its affronts and shell-
          shocked deadlocks, its black pleather interior,
          oily welts beneath the cayenne spread of cumulonimbus at dinner
          along the heavens' ledge, no ambrosia for you, Sir,
          no sugar lump, no donkey, no
          carrot, no string. We clipped
          our term for pleasant holiday at the edge
          of the skating rink and lay in the slush with the lost
          mitten the Zamboni scraped away. I wanted you
          and the dull Boston skyline looked just like you
          that morning, useless harmonica. Won't belt a tune. I emptied
          my wallet of it and still I swell.
          How many scales of handsome would I need if I had you?


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Jasmine Dreame Wagner's writing has previously appeared in the Colorado Review, Indiana Review, The Seattle Review, The North American Review, The Columbia Review, elimae and is forthcoming in 32 Poems, Verse and La Petite Zine. A graduate of Columbia University, she is currently an MFA student at the University of Montana and was a writer-in-residence at the Hall Farm Center for Arts & Education in Townshend, Vermont, during the summer of 2006. Her favorite food is tomatoes.


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