There I was in black velvet,
stitched with fluorescent thread—
a trellis for thirteen roses,
dying but not dead.
Just a sprite under your blacklight,
learning moonlight is a lie—
escaping from your elf-owl-moonhowl
gaze of promise pantomimed.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
Day 19 of National Poetry Month
Elf owls are nocturnal predators and are the world’s smallest raptor. Males make a yapping noise like a puppy to attract a mate.
In the flutter-storm
of your indifference,
impaled and hung up
on your shrine—
your one mistake,
you missed my heart—
I found my footing,
one toe, one claw—one, two, at a time.
Now, I’m sending you a message
by your own barbed wire—
an epitaph to call, to cry your own,
“Here lies
your lies”—your blacks, your whites,
gray no more of my skies.
I was your patient zero,
but not one of your nine.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
Shrikes impale their prey on thorns and barbed wire fences to save for later and to hold while tearing apart to eat. They often have black and white plumage and their nicknames are “butcher bird” and “nine-killer,” which refers to folklore that they must kill nine victims before eating one. And since it’s Day Nine…
NaPoWriMo 9 challenge: use both rhyme and uneven line lengths
Shay’s Word Garden Word List: epitaph, shrine, skies
More than annoyed,
politely furious, and suffering
from PTSD,
I was elegantly unhinged.
I slipped on my Levi’s,
buttoned my white silk shirt
and strode out of cuckooville.
Sometimes I wish I’d lost it,
let them have it,
emptied the six-shooter.
But, I’m glad I didn’t.
Such types don’t need my help,
they go down on their own.
Plus, I thought, these are good boots,
who needs the mess?
I donned my Stetson,
left my name by the door in pencil,
grinding in the tip.
See it there?
It doesn’t say
puppet, robot, hostage.
Erase it
if you want to.
You’ll have to dig out the lead,
listening to your library of so-wrongs
singing its own music
on that player piano,
sounding like
a polar bear clawing
thin ice.
For the List at the Word Garden