Peggy Heitmann currently resides in the Raleigh area of North Carolina with her husband. She considers herself a word artist, a visual artist, and a medium. She has published in Asheville Poetry Review, Pembroke Magazine, The Cape Rock, Bay Leaves, Wild Goose Poetry Review, North Carolina Poetry Society Award Winning Poems, Solo Café 8&9, the sound of poets cooking, Beneath the Rainbow, Main Street Rag, Mount Olive Review, and Pinesong. Her first book of poetry is titled Patchwork, and was published by Mount Olive Press. She has worked for a number of years in the human services field, with mental health clients, homeless men, and adults with autism.
By Peggy Heitmann
Featured poem, Summer 2024
We sat in rockers on the front porch,
me pitching my ten-year-old body forward
and bumping across the stone porch.
We fanned ourselves
stirring up a languid breeze,
with the paddle fans Daddy gave us.
The flit, flit, flit barely cooled anything.
But we ruffled the air with the fan anyway.
As we fanned ourselves and each other,
images of advertising for either
North Highland Church on one side,
or Daddy’s employer, Banker’s Insurance Co.,
on the other side came into view.
We rocked miles and miles
waiting
for the four-o’clocks to bloom.
We gathered the afternoon to us
like scooping water into a pitcher.
The neighbor’s dog barked
and the crickets serenaded us.
We recognized local teens
gunning their hot rods over the gravel road
in front of the house. I felt the near sunset
sun sink its way closer to the other side
of the world, saw the subtle way the light’s
shadows lengthened across the lawn.
We rocked miles and more miles
waiting
for the four-o’clocks to bloom.
Grandmother and I talked about
nothing in particular. Sometimes
we didn’t talk at all. I feasted on
her smiles and felt full.
A View from the Milky Way
By Peggy Heitmann
Featured Poem, Issue 62, Fall 2020
Underneath a giant Mimosa,
Mama clutched a rag-mop handle
while Scooter, our black cocker,
growled and ground her teeth into
the frayed, gray mop tassels.
Twirling ‘round and ‘round, the dog
soared through the air,
a furry bird with ears fluttering
like wings.
Never losing her grip, Scooter waited
‘til Mama eased her to the ground.
The giant Mimosa shrank as I grew older.
The mop tassels stretched
into broken-yellow highway lines,
and seldom used telephone wires.
Years later, I still envision
Mama’s feet patting the grass
beneath the Mimosa—her arms extending
beyond the mop handle, beyond the tassels.
I held onto Mama like Scooter
held onto the mop. Only, Mama never
eased me to the ground. She allowed
the mop to spin out of orbit
past the trees, the stars, the galaxy.
Like the furry bird Scooter imitated,
I took flight.
Today, the sound of my own wings
flaps in my ears. From the sky,
my mother looks like a speck
in the grass.