things that glow in the dark

 

under the blacklight

they glow green

and grow still

 

sometimes they’re

tucked into a nook

like a lost doubloon

 

ready to sting like a curse

for one stolen

pieces of eight

 

sometimes they fall with a plump green thump

on the lawn burning white

in the moon’s light

 

sitting like plastic children’s rings

stuck into the green buttercream of supermarket

cupcakes near all hallows’ eve, harmless—

 

or like tonight, behind my eyes

while dreaming, a memory, a fog of gray-green

shadow moving scorpion-like,

 

not carrying enough venom

to kill,

but still—

 

 

© 2025 jennifer wagner

 

dVerse mtb

Lyric from the Land of My Dead Grandmothers

 

 

It was just a pinpoint of light,

a small hole punched in black—

 

but there they were—

the river voices

humming

like bees in wildflowers.

 

When the light grew,

I could see

them walking there, singing—

 

their limbs limber again,

these forebears—

naked, supple, strong,

who carried all of us

into the light.

 

They hollered over to me—

grandmothering

isn’t always a quiet affair—

 

Why, daughter, why

are you sitting in the dark?

 

These women who bore so many scars

marring their delicious skin,

harvesting beauty into baskets on their backs—

 

the petals of poetry made from sorrow

and wings

where in dreamstate I weep.

 

Pillars of fire, lyric pyres into my night—

I ran to them.  Ran.

As only in dreams you can.

 

Ears hungry

for their grandmother

songs again,

to write them,

to journey on—

 

making dark beauty

from my own scars

 

naked in the light.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

For dVerse Poetics and OLN

and What’s Going On?  The Dark

Swallowed Up

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of my bones,

a shy sweetheart, guarded.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of my heart,

a promised ark, departed.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of the storm,

where it started.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of a hawk,

hope, disregarded.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of a crow,

the dream, a shell, discarded.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

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