Out West

 

Lilies sprout,

butterflies rise up from their petals.

A new blade appears,

shining in the dirt,

flint sharp.

 

The beautiful things

aren’t dead,

one says.

True, echoes another.

 

Did I hear that right?

 

But all I’m met with

are bright, cherubic smiles

thrown over their shoulders

one after the other.

 

I take their meaning.

 

Jump fences, barbed wire,

float on dreams

left swirling up from the dust

on the trail.

 

Switchblade the lasso from your wings,

dig those boot heels in, girl,

 

fly.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

For Dora’s prompt at dVerse Poetics

 

(Waking Up) from the Nightmare

 

A dozen plump oranges were hanging from the tree.

A dozen plump spiders had encircled each one

with a dozen white webs.

 

Kitty tried to bat one away

but it just crawled toward the couch

and back again.

 

You sprayed them with water

but the fruit couldn’t be saved.

Except by me waking up.

 

Which I did,

and killed them

the only way I know how.

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

 

Gone but Not Forgotten

It was a baby boy.  I had him.  My movements were exact.  I checked myself in.  A door to a room, another door, a room.  There, amongst scraps of old, used fabric, in blues, and browns, and creams, soft, and good for quilt-making, he came.  My swaddled babe.  But I was alone, with babe in my arms, and out of the room, out the door, out of the room, out the door.  He never left with me.

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

Prose poem/description of a dream

I have dreams a few times a year in which I have a baby.  Sometimes I think they may have something to do with the ones I lost in miscarriages, though maybe the dreams symbolize something else altogether.  Of course, dreams can also just be dreams.  At any rate, they do always remind me how heroic it is to become a mother.  So, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this.  You are amazing.  

 

oln