Wish
by W.A. Schwartz
November 2020
Come play house with me
And I will be your singing angel.
Fill the rooms with the scent of children
and summer hair.
Laugh suddenly because a mother is herself.
Hang the windows thick with gold
for the passerby.
Build walls that pulse with kinship
Move us slowly
from kitchen to couch to bed.
But leave traces in the sand
Like shadows in reverse, prints to follow home
And know that I am watching you,
Eyes like razors,
As you peek over your shoulder just to see
That it is safe.
W.A. Schwartz is a writer and physician in Northern California. She studied literature at UC Davis and novel writing via Stanford with Caroline Leavitt. Her short story “Autumn” was selected for Honorable Mention by the literary journal Glimmer Train in October 2018, and published in the online journal The Write Launch the same month.