After a Doctor Appointment

 

 

Nestled inside

the fifth largest city in the USA,

between little bookshops and mom-and-pops,

where people came to recover from

TB and asthma all those years ago,

they knew something then.

 

Some say

the signs are everywhere.

Well, there was at least this one.  Planted like a

flag under a slope of sunny sky.

 

I circled back.  Another look

with a tear in my eye.  Your healing blurry

but nearer.

 

Why worry?  It said.  Dead end.

 

Somehow it seems contradictory,

as if we should, anyway.

As if worrying is doing something.

 

But, like the sign says, it is.  Taking the

worry road

just brings us one step closer to dead.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

What’s Going On?  Contradictions

 

Photo: street sign in the Sunnyslope area of Phoenix, AZ © 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Half/Rest

 

It’s fantastic

how You meet me here

in my undoing—spit-shined

as if You don’t see it all.

 

Those smudges

have just made it worse—

I can see that now.

 

But, in my belly

there’s half a Santa Cruz peanut butter

and Southwest honey sandwich,

and half a glass of sun tea

fresh-bled in the Arizona sun.

 

Why “Arizona’s?”  It’s all of ours, really.

But it feels like it’s mine today.

 

Mr. Siamese watches with me

the half a dozen

Gambel’s quails marching around

pecking the yard

filling their already plump physiques—

turbans bouncing.

 

I smile and laugh, and it feels good,

since I’ve already cried three times today,

after a dry spell.

 

My son’s big warm hand,

the one I used to fit into mine,

rests for a moment on my shoulder

 

and I forget

all the other things

resting on me.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Poem-a-Day 16:  write a “something fantastic” poem

 

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:7