Ever since
you came by river,
the basket of my belly birthing
you and me together,
you to life, me to mother—
from day one,
your dreams have been
my very heart’s delight.
It’s been nearly thirty years
and I never tire of knowing—
tell me, son,
what sings in you today?
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
Poem a Day 22: write a “tell me” poem
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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
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.
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.