Where Does Love Go When It Goes

Photo © Jennifer Wagner

 

Yesterday, I took a tomato from the vine,

bit into its warm flesh, and let it fill my mouth

with sun.  The only thing missing

was a pinch of salt from your hand,

brushing seeds from my lips.

 

Today, I plunged my fingers into soil

and found my hands unbroken,

though my heart was cracked and capsizing. 

I settled peppers in neat rows to grow,

salt drying in smooth rivers on my cheeks.

 

Tomorrow, or sometime hereafter,

there’ll be salsa.  I’ll take water, make wine.

Where does love go when it goes?  It’s never lost,

but found in the seasoning,

in the garden, of the survivor.

 

 

© 2026 Jennifer Wagner

 

dVerse Poetics: Where does love go?

What’s Going On?  Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Sunday Harmonica—after a Week of Heavy Metal Riffs

 

This memory . . .

     a blown candle-

 

wick—black and crisp,

     tastes of smoke-deep autumntime.

 

Wild turkeys ran beneath the trees;

     blacktail deer lingered, clopped, crunched,

 

pivoted away from the cold squeal

     of reds at the heel of a mama javelina

 

while the warm music of your hands

     spread out wide,

 

your mouth buried in my neck

     forever

 

taking the long way home.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

dVerse Poetics

 

Note: “reds” are baby javelinas.