Victoria Wyttenberg grew up in Southern Oregon, then moved to Portland, where she lives now. She taught English at the high school level for over thirty years. After retirement from the Beaverton School District, she began taking classes in drawing and painting while continuing to write. She won the Richard Hugo Prize from Poetry Northwest and the Academy of American Poets’ Harold Taylor Prize at University of Washington. Her poem “Blue Heron” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poems have been published in various journals, including Clackamas Literary Review, Cloudbank, Hubbub, The Malahat Review, Poetry Northwest, Portland Review, Seattle Review, Willow Springs, and others.

Apricot Parrots

Put a penny in the vase and tulips
lift their bowed heads.
Petals streak flame on the inside, fine ridges
uniting deep gold and copper.

Somewhere a woman in a black dress
turns her head to a man, loosens
her lips, her hair.

I try not to think of the dead
but rain falls day after day,
wetting my face, reminding.

How to live with them,
tucking moss, a few roots, a little dirt
into my pocket, I walk deeper in trees and shadow,
kiss leaves and praise the dark centers
of tulips, musky, their beauty enough
to keep us at their feet.

Like a fool, I lift my eyes
and love. More than firewood
goes up in smoke.
The moon rises, the cow jumps over,
wolves lift their heads and howl.

Here, the predicament of the body,
we weep, our mouths full of words
and hot from kisses. Unearthly petals
curl into their last dance
and gold dust falls like powdered silk.

BLUE HERON

She is the blue distance
of everything we kiss,
the guttural cry of departure.
How can any of us protect ourselves?
My husband turns from me,
and the dead slip in.
The heron is bent
like an old woman.
She is a solitary feeder
and I am afraid
my very presence drives her away,
but I return often
when she isn’t there,
my black dog by my side,
watching changes of light
on water. I look for blue
on the edge, the promise
of plumage. When I least
expect it, the heron appears,
still as wood pilings.
She knows how to avoid
storms and how to be alone,
staying in shallow margins,
waiting. The air is cold
as earth. My body kisses the blue.