embrace

to forgive you

i had to go back,

bitterness falling like leaves

picking up stones,

gathering them

by the basketful—

my skin, arms, and back

riven and bloodied

with the buckling load

i’d intended to throw

with my calloused

and burning hands

but the sun on the leaves

that day in october

was so glorious,

and i felt so rich,

knew i was so rich, that

i laid the basket down

at your feet and

stretched out

my arms

bitterness falling, gently,

like leaves

© 2019 jennifer wagner

majestic poetics

Enough

How we hated Lamonts,

my aunt and I,

as her sister—my mother,

her mother—my grandma,

shopped and tried

on somebody else’s

soon-to-be clothes.

It was the smell,

we said,

or the way

it made us feel

confined

or defined

by dress or bra or shoe.

And leave to breathe,

fairly sprinting to her car,

in search of that bright patch of sky

that agreed

we were already enough.

© 2019 Jennifer Wagner

Poetry Pantry #495

Soon: Spiders

Dalí looks at me

from across the room,

time melting as if exhausted

from the heat.

That look: like puppy dog eyes

pleading for a shift in the breeze.

But, no, I say,

don’t do that to me.

The darkness is coming,

so damp and rich I can taste it.

And soon:

spiders.

© 2019 Jennifer Wagner

Reference:  Salvador Dalí's clocks in The Persistence of Memory.