Wendy McVicker

Wendy McVicker is the recent past poet laureate of Athens, Ohio, and a longtime teaching artist. Her most recent chapbook is Zero, a Door (The Orchard Street Press, 2021). She loves the woods, the river, her family, including a cranky cat, and moving: walking, dancing, practicing yoga and karate (which she also teaches). She also loves collaborations with writers and artists in other media. When she gets the chance, she performs with instrumentalist Emily Prince, under the name “another language altogether.”

My Mother & The Piano

She was tiny, the piano
was huge. She was pale,

her eyes the blurred
translucency of ice —

the piano was dark, an eater
of shadows. Her hands

on the keys had purpose;
she stroked ivory, unable

to bring herself to stroke
skin. Once she knelt

and hugged me, just after
she’d filled the house

with gas. The piano
brooded, silent, in its corner.

It could not save us.