Gold Rush

 

This scent, this soft

sweater, both lavender,

on my skin.

 

I don’t know

where I got them—just picked them up

somewhere on the journey—gifts

 

along this path of stones

with sun, partly obscured, glinting

off miles of crushed fool’s gold—

 

my eyes squinting

in the dark

until the true rush—

treasure, shining.

 

This scent mingles

with memories of breast milk

on my babies’ breath,

 

fresh soap on their skin—

and that old quilt

from when I was young.

 

I wish I had it here now.

Purple, storied, some patches

tearing away.

 

I’d lay it down,

drink the wine of your lips,

pull our stories around us,

fool’s gold abandoned—

 

as our children are tearing away,

the lights of their own stories—

quilts unfolding.

 

Us, gold, rich.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

What’s Going On?  Light

 

As a mother, nothing delights me more than seeing my sons thrive and follow their dreams.  This year is a big one for each of them with significant upcoming milestones.  What’s best is they all have such good hearts.  True gold.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude to see who they are becoming as men, as lights.

 

Coyote

 

Today I write poems.

The hard ones.

The worst and best to write.

 

Regret at how I hurt you

as you were so little

while my fears were so big

and so looming.

 

I am sorry.

I am fool enough to think

these words may be enough.

 

Looking out the window

at the fog that got us both,

I know this is how you, feel, too—

lost, unseeing.

 

I don’t know when you will understand

and shake off your winter coat

and run, orange fur escaping into the sun

and meadows I kept you from.

Go now, I pray.

 

Your bruisings I will hold in my heart, I hope,

if allowed,

so you may be free

 

from this tumbleweed field

where I birthed you,

where my eyelashes are becoming weighted down

by dust.

 

Go, go, and remember the best of us.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

She, Who First Brushed My Hair

 

Photo © 2024 Jennifer Wagner

She, caretaker of the delicate,

loves lavender, and roses,

and has the most

extravagant in town.

 

Loves memories of

Neligh and being

the only one Grandma

would let try on her fine jewelry.

 

Loved paper dolls and babies,

wanted one with brown eyes,

and because God was listening,

got two—

 

me, her first, for

she, who first brushed my hair—

her baby born early,

born with none,

 

a lost heartbeat, found—

kissed my hands, day one,

kissed them, two—

 

she, caretaker of the delicate, her doves,

she, who first brushed my hair.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

A Mother’s Day poem for my mama. 

Happy (early) Mother’s Day!

I was born early via emergency C-section due to being breech with a prolapsed umbilical cord and no discernible heartbeat to a very frightened first-time mama.  Also, I didn’t get hair for a while so my mom taped a little bow on my head until I did.  Haha.

She has the most amazing roses in her yard—passersby often stop and take photos.

Photo:  a note she stuck in the poem, “Étude Réaliste,” by Algernon Charles Swinburne inside a volume of poetry, Anthology of the World’s Best Poems, Memorial Edition, Volume V, 1950, which she gave me on my 50^th birthday. 

And, because Mama loves roses and Elvis:

 

Shay’s Word List

dVerse OLN