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

 

 

 

my hipparchus

 

mapping the stars

on my back

you don’t ask me

for anything—

 

and let me cry

to forget what’s happened

between now

and the last good year

 

you don’t ask

for anything—so i can

remember how

to give the stars their names again

 

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

for dverse quadrille #175:  craft a poem in exactly 44 words using some form of the word “map”

 

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.