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
You understood
nothing
except the piece
of yourself
you tore out of us
and tossed at the fault line
beating like a heart.
I built this poem
around the jagged wound,
refired in the kiln of a sun
who heard my
silent bleeding
and wept aloud
for the breaking you had done.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
dVerse Poetics: Building from the Broken
They say there’s much you can do with
stale bread.
Panzanella, bruschetta, crostini.
Croutons, bread pudding.
How like spring,
new and fresh, it goes quickly,
and then, the blistering oven
of summer is here.
But, how do you salvage a poem, like sunrise,
so fleeting you can never seem to catch it in time?
Like manna.
Here and gone.
I saw it today, etched into the glass of a window
with an epitaph:
Your wings were ready, but my heart was not.
I see how it is.
I glimpsed you briefly, soft-robed phantom,
boarding a train to somewhere else,
orphaned, like my last vanished poem,
not a breadcrumb in sight,
on into the starry night.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
"Your wings were ready, but my heart was not." - Amelia Hutchins
When you just don’t jot it down in time. Know the feeling? Maybe it will return, when it, and I, am ready. ;)