Tag: Contemporary Poetry

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