The Space Between Us

 

Photo © Jennifer Wagner

Ghostskulls and peppers

line brick-and-mortars

where Santa Fe licks heels of tourists

emptying their pockets of tin.

 

The warm, earthy scent of blue corn

tortillas gallops on high desert wind—

here, where chance remains

of another time find me—a castaway

 

in some longebegone

Puebloan city—

hungry for a taste of spice

as ancient as Eve.

 

 

© 2026 Jennifer Wagner

 

dVerse Poetics

lua’s line

St. Brutus

 

Photo © Jennifer Wagner

 

Oh, he was a love, an absolute valentine, that

St. Brutus of the backyard and chewed up swing set when

we lived just an alleyway’s kiss from Shakey’s Pizza.  You

couldn’t miss him, could always find

him, he, St. Brutus of the gentle jaws and powerful drool.  So, it

left a hole, that swinging open gate, when it

became clear he’d been lured, or stolen, or sent, from us.  Is

it that he had another mission, another boy or girl to rescue, to warm?

Oh, you may not have known where your new valentine came from,

but just know that it was warm from me.

 

 

© 2026 Jennifer Wagner

 

What’s Going On? Pets I Have Known

 

dVerse Poetry Form: Golden Shovel.  Choose a line from a poem and craft your poem so each line of your poem ends with a word from your chosen line.  I chose the line “that when you find it, it is warm from me” from “Pocket Poem” by Ted Kooser from his 2008 book, Valentines.  I also used it in part as my closing line, though that is not a requirement.

 

Written in memory of Brutus, beloved St. Bernard, bawling as I did so.