All

 

I don’t know

if I told you today

I love the way your beard oil

lingers on my fingers,

the way I get to smell you

even after you’ve left me

 

in this old house,

in the corner of the room,

with my desk and bookshelf

in just-right light

streaming in from the windows.

 

All of which

you put together

because you believe

in these words I write.

 

Have I told you today

I cried again,

thinking about that longing look

in your eyes,

wondering if I am pleased with this—

your offering?  How it

 

swallows me whole

as if the pieces of me

aren’t lying scattered here—

while you only see

the All

of me?

 

How often you say

I am much more to you

than any of these ripped-up, jagged

parts.

 

Is this an ode?  Possibly.

You are my silver-crowned king,

though some might shrink at what thoughts

those antique, unfashionable words might bring.

 

I say them because

you have me, All,

and treat me like your queen.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Coming up on 27 years with this man.

Simply Jesus

your blood blooms still 

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

When there’s not enough hyssop

to cleanse me of all these flaws—

I think I must live with them,

make slow improvements

with the

tick tick tick

of time’s cruel elements.

I know too well this unruly thing

inside me is me,

but there, too,

is the me that hungers for her first love

somewhere buried beneath

bruising, hardening, scarring

it throbs,

however disjointedly.

I am not a girl of

ritual, rules or religion.

I only know that at fifteen

I just wanted

to hold Your hand.

And now,

beyond church

and the things they add to it all,

and bitter politics

and the things they take away from it all,

and morality,

and all these rules I break—

I stand here today

wondering

when did I ever get the idea

You were not enough?

In dark,

in cloud,

in lightless days,

Your blood blooms still.

And I remember

I never needed

anything else anyway.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

1 Corinthians 2:2-5.  And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony^[a] of God. ² For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. ³ I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. ⁴ And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human^[b] wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Easter Poem

of all the blueprints

and maps,

locations marked with a jagged cross,

i like the one where we intersected best

Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Wagner

I celebrate Easter and if you do too, I hope you have a happy one!