Fully Hope End Up

 

When pain escapes,

it’s a relief.

 

Like when my mom

describes my grandma’s passing,

 

her body gripped by pain

for so many years,

 

bent in the shape

of the chair

 

where she spent

most of her last days.

 

The whoosh—

a gone pain

 

released from a mortal body.

 

I felt something like it this morning.

That One Certain Memory

 

blinking like a cursor

when I woke.

 

Do you have one, too?

That memory

 

always accompanied

by the pain that bent you, still bends you?

 

It was gone.

 

And my heart stretched out like a palm

on Sunday,

 

hope-end up

to You.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Poem-a-Day 13:  write a “Full (blank)” poem, make it your title

NaPoWriMo 13

 

Photo:  inside The Mission in the Sun © 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

a poem for palm Sunday

 

Green Apple Tattoo

 

Mom and Dad harvested the green apples

and then took down the tangled trees—

the apricot trees, too,

as they were dying.

 

But the lilacs still bloomed prettily

across the fence line

in our backyard

May to June.

 

In summer, Dad made a target

behind the garage

for me to work on my softball aim.

He always said I had

a good arm after that.

 

At Christmas, Luke gave me

a lilac blossom candle

(even his name means light-giving),

and baseball’s Spring Training is soon to start

here in the desert.

 

All this to say, if tattoos

came in scents, I’d get some.

Green apple, lilac,

old leather softball glove.

 

Little gifts lingering long upon my skin—

bright sparks of memory,

lit candles, shining always,

even in my dark.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner