“You can observe a lot
just by watching,”
said a baseball player
who understood seasons.
Two afternoons ago,
I sat in a lecture hall
watching a man
who still loves what he does.
This, I think, is a form of generosity.
He spoke about observation
as though it were not a skill
but a posture,
something you lean into
rather than master.
Take the dandelion.
We learned its name early.
We learned it could grant wishes
if we breathed hard enough.
We learned the wind would do the rest.
Then we decided
we knew it.
Label applied.
Lesson complete.
Attention withdrawn.
The dandelion continued anyway
with its architecture,
its patience,
its quiet mathematics of return.
It kept unfolding relationships
with bees,
with soil,
with children who forgot its name
but still loved its defiance.
How many things
have we learned only enough
to stop looking?
How many people
do we greet by name
while knowing nothing
of their design?
Later, we were encouraged
to ask our questions
and then to set them down.
To watch.
Intellectual beauty likes to be solved.
Aesthetic beauty prefers to be witnessed.
One explains.
The other arrives.
So perhaps today
we step outside
without extracting meaning.
No schedules.
No proof.
Just a willingness
to stand still
long enough
for something ordinary
to show itself
as extraordinary.
And if we feel something
we cannot name,
let us resist the urge
to name it.
Let us watch.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Category: Poems and Sonnets
Poem: Like Any Woman
It was not what she said
Instead
It was the way she held
The stem of her glass
Between freshly painted
Fingernails
Details
Red wine and red.
She breathed in and out
Like any woman would
Except
The silk in her dress
Gathered and fell
With inhale and
Exhale—
I waited for the next.
Her laugh was too loud
No clever disguise of
Civilized
Formalized veiling her mouth
Instead
Candlelit stares
In the face of she
Whose savage joy mesmerized me.
There was a soulful tune
Permeating the room
Penetrating
Armor I knew
Well beyond its usefulness
But
I had grown accustomed to
Until I felt the thrust of she.
Never before had her eyes
Encountered mine
“Hello,” I said—
Enunciation tranquilized
Words fell all the way back
And slid
To the sharpest point
Of her black high heel.
It was not that I fell mute
Instead
I dared not dilute
Fortuity in the air
With words wrapped
In coherence or
Forced insistence
Of my own understanding.
I held my hand open
For her to take
Perceiving
Gently cleaving
To the feeling
If she lay her hand in mine
Her touch would both stop and
Awaken time.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: We Walked Through Snow and Ice
People are complicated. They’re rarely what we first believe, and they’re almost always carrying a weight we cannot see. We tend to notice what others are willing or able to show us, and we assign meaning from there.
Strength, in particular, is easy to misread. Sometimes it’s resilience. Sometimes it’s concealment. Often it’s both.
We move through the world interpreting one another through our own mixture of experience, education, memory, and fear. It is remarkable that we connect at all. And yet, we do.
We walked along in the snow and ice
And you wanted to hold my hand.
I thought you wanted to show yourself strong,
But you were losing your footing too,
And needed my steadiness to help you along.
I refused you because I did not need your help,
I did not fear a fall,
And then you fell all on your own.
I wondered
If I could have helped.
We walked along a sandy shore
And you wanted to hold an umbrella up to the sun.
I thought you worried my skin would burn,
But yours was turning red,
You forgot your hat and needed the cover.
I refused you because I did not need your help,
My skin is olive in tone,
And then your skin turned hot.
I wondered
If I should have helped.
We walked along in wind and rain
And you wanted to lead me into shelter.
I thought you wanted to hold me close,
But beads of sweat gathered around your head,
And fever took your strength and made you ill.
I refused you because I did not need your help,
For me, the rain is a thrill,
And then you lay for days in your bed.
I wondered
Why I did not help.
We walked along inside my dreams
And you wanted to plot out the way.
I thought you wanted to boast in your sense of direction,
But the path grew long and the day turned to night,
So we lost one another under the stars.
I refused your course because I did not need your help,
For me, wandering without plan is adventure,
But then I lost you and you were gone.
I wondered
If I should have let you lead.
We walked away, I went this way, you went that,
And you did not turn to watch me go.
I thought you wanted to stay,
But the distance grew wide
And the time grew long.
I refused to feel because I could not feel it all,
My heart was broken in your hands,
But when I felt it all at once
I turned,
And you were gone.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Puff and Flicker
She sat in the corner of my room
Smoking a cigarette and
Draining
A glass of whiskey and
Draining
Me.
She was the kind of woman
Who let her ashes fall and she
Swept
Them under my rug but I was never
Swept
Away.
She stayed and she stepped
And the ashes dug into the
Ground
Creating a circle of black
Like a sacrifice made to what could not
Be.
I couldn’t make her leave
Even when she didn’t want to
Stay
And when I couldn’t bear to
Stay
Away.
She sang songs too loudly
And wanted applause
But all I could muster
Were halfway smirks
And halfhearted shards of
Me.
“We were happy once,”
She said then she flicked and
Fire
Fell and she kicked the
Fire
Away.
“The flame is hot and the
Light is bright,”
I muttered.
“Don’t flatter yourself
You aren’t the man you used to
Be.”
Wisps of smoke rose between
Her fingers and she
Puffed
And then coughed and then
Puffed
Away.
“The furnace you lit is
Beginning to roll
Like a lake of flames
Licking the shore
And I fear the fire will splash onto
Me.”
She looked at me with
A tone of voice that was
Silent
Like a deaf man wanting to push
Silent
Away.
“I thought you were speaking of
Love but now I see
I am being engulfed
Because I misunderstood.
You should probably leave me
Be.”
I watched as she sat in the corner
Smoking like a cigarette and
Draining
Drops of whiskey to stop the fire, her life
Draining
Away.
When I knew she was gone
The echoes of my heartbeat
Revived
And vibrated against the walls and
Revived
Me.
© Jill Szoo Wilson
Poem: Refreshment
There are moments when we
must stop
and look
and tend to
the unexpected and
deeply welcomed,
simply because
we live.
A lemonade stand
at the edge of the road,
cardboard sign wavering
between LEMONADE and LEMONAED.
The coins wait in a jar,
oblong ice accepts its fate
as tiny fingers stir
through mostly water.
Engines reconsider.
Appointments learn patience.
Briefcases bloom with splashes of sugar
any bee would envy.
My cat arrives
with the object he loves most.
Not the clean one.
The true one.
He sets it down carefully,
then looks up,
as if to say:
you’ll want to see this.
And I do.
The afternoon brightens,
pleased with itself.
Thoughts wander off
without wearing their shoes.
My eyes squint
in mixed morning light—
the bulb above the kitchen sink
and ribbons of sunrise through open blinds.
Coffee steams.
I smell it before I see it,
and then I do—
steam lifts
just as light
reaches the window.
Waking,
and God,
and refreshment
keep company
without comment.
—Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: The Us We Can See
I am stationed at a wooden table
the size of a reasonable thought.
It does not wobble.
This feels like a small mercy
after watching my Americano
sway back and forth on the last.
Here, the Americano steams steadily
as if rehearsing confidence,
dark, uncomplicated,
uninterested in my opinions.
I wear fingerless gloves,
a compromise between dignity and survival.
My knuckles remain unconvinced.
Winter returns again and again
through the green-painted door,
carried on the backs of coats,
slipping in at ankle height,
lingering like someone
who has already said goodbye
but remains.
A woman at the counter
counts her change twice,
the last of her pennies
now a relic of a simpler time
when 1-2-3 meant something more.
A man near the window
keeps turning his cup
until the logo faces forward,
forgetting the face
with every sip,
which ends with a new turn.
A familiar dance, a waltz?
Sip-2-3, sip-2-3.
A woman with wiry white hair
removes a bright turquoise hat,
carefully crocheted,
leaving one thread to dangle
from a curl.
The thread hesitates.
So does she.
Heavy oak chairs keep their positions,
pretending not to notice
who chooses them and why,
practiced at holding
what is briefly certain.
A barista with inked forearms
wipes the same spot again,
loyal to a principle I do not know.
The clock on the wall yawns
while declining comment,
stretching its hands
in a familiar reach,
analog-2-3, sameness-2-3,
predictable without irony.
I lift the white mug,
my fingers watching and ready,
and remember how warmth
asks to be held,
while cold does not.
—Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Eight Out of Ten
A robin lands on the arm of the garden chair
as if the universe were not built to frighten her.
She tilts her head. The world tilts with it.
No anthem announces her.
No speech.
No medal.
Only the wind, unbuttoned at the collar,
pretending not to notice.
She steps once, twice—
a feathered stride across the iron rung,
making a path of what is there.
The waking yard yawns and watches,
a mini tightrope walker—
eight out of ten from the pine tree branches.
She pecks at a crumb
left over from someone’s careless breakfast—
(is that my blueberry with a bit of bagel?)
it is hardly a feast.
Yet she claims it with the authority
of a creature who never learned to doubt her place.
A distant car door slams.
The robin pauses.
I can see her thinking
the way a tiny body thinks—
all heartbeat and decision.
Then she stays.
This is how courage works:
not with battle cries,
but with the quiet agreement
to remain exactly where fear expected you to flee.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Love, Or Something Like It
There was a time
When the feeling was high
Like a tide
Rolling up and in
Surfers flying
Sun shining and
Invisible heartbeats
Crooning tunes of
Love
Or something like it.
The edge of desire
Between water and fire
Where burning is natural
Safe and contained
Where extinguishing
Is disregarded like a far-off joke
Laughter and ease
No appeasing
Only releasing
No hand on the trigger.
A season of passion
Final bastion before the mix
Of hearts and hands
Rhythms and bands
Playing songs for two
And candles glowing
Illustrating the knowing
Breaking shadows
Into pieces like crumbs
Along the way.
Shadows slip into
The hourglass—
Goodbye—
Crumbs and sands combine
Lost
And time falling
Sand filling darkness
That cannot be fished
All the way down
Into deepest fathoms of regret.
It is quiet there
Where thoughts dare not
To squirm—
They writhe instead
Slither over, “what the hell”
Wriggle past hatred
Lick the ears of obliterated
Words and
Images all stamped with,
“Doubt.”
There is a way out
But only further down
Past the malice
And through the chalice
Of poison
Red with the blood of
Something once living
Now stiffening
Twitching slowly before
Final death.
A memory of breath
Clouding
First love
Then hatred
Now something
More foreboding—
Indifference
The truest enemy of
That which was
And no longer is.
Indifference is
The air surrounding and
That one time we—
Oh, wait, now I forgot—
It is a stroll in the park
With nothing hiding,
Sitting at a traffic light
Waiting for green
But red is fine, too—
Nothing to forget, nothing to pursue.
There was a time
When hearing your voice
Scattered my focus
Like bees swarming
Drenched in honey
Bringing balance
To the flowers that we gave
And the ones we dropped
Along the way—
A garden full and thriving.
“Hello?”
My God, the timing—
I did not expect
How could I have known
That the ringing of my phone
Would start the race
Like a pistol pointed above,
Toward the space
Where helium-filled expectations
Rest in peace.
I touched my lips
As I do when my heart
Beats
Suddenly
Quickly
Stinging the parts that
Stabilize
When I realize
My hands are the only protection
I have.
“Hello,”
I heard—
Oh,
Hell no—
Hello is not enough
No greeting
Even in the repeating
Could fill the chasm
Between speaking
And hearing.
I wanted to spill
Like a leak in a pipe
Drip into the boards
Between my feet on the floor
Become a puddle
With no response
No chance to offer
More kindling to
Soak
Or to muddle.
I heard his voice
Once more
A bolt of electricity—
I was struck
With a memory
The simplicity of
The time that was high
The surfers, the tide—
A different world
A haunted time.
Then it was quiet
“It” being I
And I being the me
I remembered
I became
After the exit
Of he
And I breathed
Into the phone
Then I hung up—dial tone.
I poured a glass of Merlot
Sat in an unfamiliar glow
Once having waited—
Deeply anticipating his hello—
Now
Denied
Then
Intoxicated with his lies
But no more
And the red warmed my soul.
Once I read
Written on the sky
The opposite of love
Is hate
But you see, my dear,
I fear the stars
Were misinformed—
The opposite of love is
Indifference
I am sure I am right
As muted versions of
You and I
Are blown to dry
And stick
To freshly painted fingernails—
Not painted for you.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Where Our Eyes Have Met
A single painting in an art museum gathers the gaze of countless viewers, linking people who will never stand there together.
This is a poem about that.
A hundred eyes
have paused at this painting—
or maybe a million—
a crowd distributed across decades,
all standing just where I stand now,
though wearing different shoes.
Some looked quickly,
some leaned in,
some tilted their heads
as if the angle held a secret.
None of them knew
they were becoming part of each other’s story.
The gold frame won’t say
how many people have stood here,
or how long,
or what they were hoping for.
Paintings don’t keep lists.
Still, I wonder
if your eyes
have ever touched this canvas
in the exact place mine do now.
If so, the colors would remember.
They are better archivists than we are.
A single brushstroke
might recognize you—
the way the spotlight sharpened on its surface
when you stepped closer,
the way it softens now
because I have.
We might have shared this moment
without sharing the hour.
Two visitors,
unlikely to meet,
connected by a patch of green
that neither of us layered
yet both of us trust.
It’s possible
the painting knows us both—
you by a trace of perfume,
me by the giggle I released too loudly,
you by the tear you wiped away quickly,
and them by a single loose thread
from their bright red scarf.
All the while,
it stays exactly where it is,
patient as a held page,
letting strangers
complete the same sentence
with different eyes.
What an odd, prismatic intimacy—
to be joined
by something that never speaks,
yet answers
each of us
in turn.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Snowfall On a Patio Chair
It started with one flake I mistook for a drop,
without asking my permission,
as snow often does.
By morning, the patio chair—
the one with the pale blue cushions I meant to bring in—
had accepted its fate
with the patience of an object that knows
humans forget things.
The snow took its time.
A thin first layer,
then another,
each one more certain than the last.
If the chair felt imposed upon,
it gave no sign.
From the maple,
a squirrel watched the slow takeover,
pressed flat against the trunk
in an embrace that invited romance, or,
at the very least,
warmth.
It twitched its tail once—
a gesture somewhere between
expectation and indifference—
then sighed a tiny puff of breath.
Meanwhile, at the back of the yard,
the pine tree leaned lower than yesterday.
The branches, loaded with fresh snow,
descended far enough
to touch the needles that had fallen weeks ago.
A quiet reunion.
If trees feel anything at such moments,
I imagine it’s something austere:
nostalgia, perhaps,
maybe even joy.
A grand ceremony,
and no one asked me to attend.
Still, I stood at the window,
unsummoned,
as winter arranged its small corrections:
the forgotten tucked in,
the living held close,
the fallen greeted by their own.
A world going on
perfectly well
without my remembering.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Necessary Whispers 