Empty

 

It backs the Agua Fria Freeway,

a rolled newspaper still in the drive.

Why didn’t I notice the signs?

 

There’s a crack in an upstairs window;

white roses in the yard

bend and droop like once proud nuns

now turned brown in the sun.

 

I remember when they were full sails,

taut and quivering at a busy harbor—

but this

 

matches my own heart for rent,

where boats come, but mostly go,

sitting like an empty womb,

 

a house for all

I wish I’d given you.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

The Word Garden Word List

Mistake

 

Oh, the regret.

Shopping at

Costco

on a Friday

before a holiday.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

Writer’s Digest:  Write a Mistake Poem

 

National Poetry Month:  Day 4

Sideways

Toril “Smells Like Rain”

Winter moans elsewhere ---but here

within me,

yesterdays roam,

panicky.

Like spring rain. Staccato.

My poems are wet ash.

My skin, sand through hourglass.

I make

for shelter,

a grain too late---

caught

in clouds of least favorable reflection.

And though I'm determined to at least pace them,

I know

I can never outrun

the rain.

© 2015 Jennifer Wagner

For Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Art with Toril.