margaret wagner

For The Groundhog

I hit you by mistake the other day, Friday,
at 11 a.m. on the country club drive
next to the creek at low tide.

I was looking in the distance at the woman
in yellow pants with swiveling hips walking her miniature dogs and
the golfer in the green plaid jacket swinging for the tee.

I spotted you from my corner eye,
your brown fur rippled
with your slow, looping gait.

You’ll turn back, I thought. I’ll brake, I thought. There’s time, I thought.
Then I heard a bump. In my rearview mirror,
I saw your last quiver.

Oh no, I thought. I’m sorry, I thought.
I’m so sorry.
Please forgive me.

Margaret Wagner is a writer, dancer, and artist who has written articles for World Screen and won three Travelers’ Tales Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing. She has studied with Ellen Bass, Marie Howe, Jericho Brown, and Julia Cameron, in addition to conscious dance pioneers Gabrielle Roth and Anna Halprin. Margaret is the founder of WRITE IN THE BEATTM, workshops that pair mindful movement with written poetry and visual art. She graduated with a B.A. in American Studies from Mount Holyoke College and attended the public sessions of Dominican University of California’s MFA creative writing courses and the AWP Conference 2019 (Portland, OR). She has served as visiting faculty at the Omega Institute, Kripalu, and Mount Holyoke College and is a certified Open Floor and 5Rhythms® dance teacher. Her work has been published in Cacti Fur, Evening Street, Review, Front Porch Review, Perceptions Magazine, I-70 Review, Raw Journal of the Arts and Steam Ticket.