Bloodscript in Blueblack

(a good woman, too)

Photo © Jennifer Wagner (artwork found at Gus's, a local restaurant fav)

The crows were the only lights—

the moon, cloaked in cloud,

made glints on their wings

just enough to see the shape of things

as they were.

 

But I’d seen enough

of that

black sky,

choked enough noxious smoke

in that pitiless city.

 

For too long,

I’d felt the dark bruise of my heart

spreading like disease.

 

Birds don’t always sing

me awake—those crows,

brilliant as sunrise,

with their ink-soaked wings,

 

dropped their quills in my palms,

and, for the brooding imp of my mind,

a map home

by pressing pain to page.

 

 

© 2026 Jennifer Wagner

 

We’re using color at dVerse.  Anyone else found writing poetry helps process pain, or get out of the blues? ;-)

 

fear not, for we’re just poems—

 

 

rubbed together in a pocket,

rattling

 

smallish and fierce,

davidic—

 

or, too, like pieces of cloud

puffy-white against a blanket of oh-so-baby-tear-drop blue

 

or, a drip-draping of grayish snow,

just a tad cranky, only a touch ominous

 

or rising

like the sun, or a siren, yea high and heralding—

 

costa’s hummers and pink fairy dusters

and other such underestimated beautiful mayhem

 

 

© 2026 jennifer wagner

 

dVerse poetics: turn of phrase

 

photo © jennifer wagner