Aristotle's Kiss

 

Photo © 2024 Jennifer Wagner

There are places

my heart goes to,

cracks in the earth

softened by sunrise

or sunset.

 

Remember those pink cookies

we’d get on the way to work

to share over coffee?

 

I haven’t had one in years,

but here they are,

hanging like a sun

from a tree.

 

Perfectly round, like fruit,

to pick, to share,

to illuminate the darkness

we’ve been held in for too long.

 

Aristotle’s kiss

has been long and deep.

All that salt

needs something sweet.

 

Meet me here before

the blue-black of night,

before crow-dark feathers

creep cold across our eyelids.

 

It’s nearing sunset.

I’ve one plate,

two halves,

and

coffee’s waiting.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

Poetic Bloomings

 

Reference: “Men cannot know each other until they have eaten salt together.”  -Aristotle

 

Divide/d

 

I lie awake

as if disturbed by some

unremembered dream,

listening for sound.

 

Raindrops, a cricket against the pane,

a far-off haboob stirring in the wind.

 

The air is thick and peppery

as I slip outside

past dark, before midnight.

 

Some spent petunia petals

have turned to powder

on the patio

making outlines

around their veins

like burst fireworks.

 

The wind tousles

the chime

sprinkling me with music.

 

My bones dance within me,

stirring the stew of this poem.

 

I miss you. 

The moon is cold comfort

and my palms

never reach that far.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

Poetic Bloomings