At a dinner party
the hostess is half goddess
half bird— a common cuckoo
immortal & beautifully
feathered; a heron
a heroine—her hair highlighted
thoughts luminous in & out of the house
perfectly lined lips
round with vowels marking with precision
shiraz in a crystal glass six seven eight times
she seems to be the sum of the familiar locked in the past
flawlessness & clichés — she practices
the pleasant face;
faintly nodding
to the fight about
tariffs & kidnappings growing louder—
it hails inside her.
Edytta Wojnar, born and raised in Poland, now lives in New Jersey, where she teaches College Writing and Literature. The author of Dandelions in Third Space, Stories Her Hands Tell, Here and There, and Red Rain (forthcoming later this year), she received a 2025 Individual Artist Finalist award from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
