{"id":1143,"date":"2026-04-15T19:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2026-04-17T12:36:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T12:36:56","slug":"wings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1143","title":{"rendered":"Wings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Push open the door;
willpower against breeze.
Traipse through an office lot,
hands clutching collar closed.
Precious cargo en route.

Reunited with my my car,
I gingerly unclench my fingers
extract a length of thin paper
from my chest; stow it 
with reverence in the cup holder.

Draw seat belt across me.
Drive across town; 
park once more.
Meet an old friend for lunch;
a prior commitment.

We're seated by the hostess.
I don't talk.
I stare off at the far wall.
I count, without tallying,
the colorful glass bottles
in the cafe's art installation.
I knock salt and pepper shakers 
into one another. Boom! 

            \"So....What do you want?\"
My lunch partner ventures.
Silence; my non-response.
                            \"...For...lunch?\" 
She probes, further. 
Still nothing.
I am not Here.

She rolls her eyes 
heavenward.
She lists out meal options.
       \"Salad? Sliders? Entree?\"
All while nodding her head, 
loaded with emphasis.
I barely hear her.

                 \"Diana, what's up<\/em>?\" 
She stops;  gives me 
The Look.
Not a look of knowing<\/em>, 
mind you, but a more
common look of vexation.

                   \"You not hungry?\"
I 
don't 
respond 
quickly 
enough.

I do register, 
however,
                              a deep sigh<\/em>
from her side of table.

She narrows her eyes, 
while mine drift to hers.
I lock in.

\"Wings.\" 
                                 \"Huh?\"

I declare again,
quietly, but decisively.
\"I want wings.\" 
\"I need<\/em> wings.\" 

She squints at me.
                     \"Ummm...OK?\"

As if this will explain it, 
provide context for my
prolonged strangeness,
I simply reply:
\"I'm pregnant. 
Pregnant!\"

The server arrives
I order a dozen 
for myself, 
alone.

It's been six years
of failed launches.

And now
with the help of science,
a new story,
at last.

I finally have 
a second heartbeat 
thrumming strong yet unfelt
deep in my changing body.

My dining companion, 
who is in this moment
both child-free 
and single,
watches me 
with a double dose 
of intrigue
and of horror.
          (She orders a sandwich.)

The platter, 
my<\/em> platter, of wings
hits the table.
I do not hesitate.

I proceed to bite, 
gnash teeth,
and strip down
each broiled segment
to its stony-grey bone.

I am 
   where
      the Wild Things 
are.

Again 
\u2014 and again \u2014
\u2014 and still more \u2014
until the plate is 
but a scattering 
of denuded poultry 
humeri, radii and ulnae. 

I am more 
than hungry.
I am starving. 

I am burning 
with want.
I am yearning. 
For motherhood.

The holy grail 
I have sought
for so very long.

Since the playgrounds 
of my own youth.
In those school yards
where I played House 
in the dirt with my classmates.
And I was The Mom.
Always, in play yet
still never, in reality.

= = = 

It's been more than
one hundred sixty months
since that moment 
in a booth where I likely, 
no definitely, slightly terrified 
my childhood friend.

Ever since that blustery day,
whenever I get the honor 
and delight of devouring 
a glistening plate of wings,
I return to that strange
autumn afternoon of surreality.

That tableau at the table
in which I fully processed that,
at long last, I was finally, 
finally, actually pregnant.

My epiphany, 
and my accompanying
epicurious attack,
over lunch with a friend.

I can still taste
the glory of those wings.
The ones that my 
little miracle in the making
had telegraphed to me.

That they had,
from before their first breath,
craved so compellingly. 
So dearly. 

And that I had found
and felled,
hungrily, 
on their behalf.
Teamwork.

And now, in a new era,
I look across the table
and lock eyes at her.
My daughter.

We raise our wings
and clink them together
in a meaty toast while
we exclaim, \"Cheers!\" 

It's our little ritual;
our meal-time prayer.
Over hot wings, 
we raise our high hopes
and we honor the sacred
\u2014 and the savory.

For both are needed: 
fill the the soul;
fill the stomach.
Amen.<\/em>









<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWings,\u201d a tableau about what was on the table on a milestone day. Written April 15, poem 105 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, “Life-Changing Wings,” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,2,666],"tags":[676,441,614,673,661,675,665,671,672,41,668,677,662,56,664,663,169,667,669,275,674,670,660],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-long-form-musings","category-poems","category-reminiscing","tag-amen","tag-april","tag-april-15th","tag-car","tag-chicken-wings","tag-child-free","tag-cravings","tag-doctors-office","tag-driving","tag-friends","tag-infertility","tag-ivf","tag-lunch","tag-mother-daughter-dynamics","tag-office-park","tag-parking-lot","tag-prayer","tag-pregnancy","tag-reverence","tag-science","tag-seatbelt","tag-sonogram-pictures-implied","tag-wings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1217,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/1217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}