Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Florida Senior Poet Laureate

Joan Cavanagh Manning

WISHES


Your letter pleads that we should meet tonight
and grant your hope that you might hold me near.
I fear you'll never get your wish. I write
these special words to you, my wishful dear,
but they would not mean more from me, if I
could touch your lips, your finger tips and kiss
your fiery brow, that covers up the lie
that you will always be my spring of bliss.
For years long now much distance grew, between
ourselves, our souls, our lives. Whatever tied
us once is gone. Let's say the words we mean
in honesty. What love we had has died.
I think, my dear, this story reached the end
when, out of bed, you called me, "just a friend."

Joan Cavanagh Manning
Cutler Bay, Florida
JOAN CAVANAGH MANNING, 71, Cutler Bay, Florida, is a retired graphic artist who expected a rejection. Instead, she says, “ I got the mail. . . opened it on the elevator, and screamed: I have been named Senior Poet Laureate of Florida! What a pleasant shock! Thank you.” Her sign is Taurus.