Photo © 2024 Jennifer Wagner |
From the watchtower
I saw them, wildflowers
drifting downstream.
I followed on foot, from loamy bank
to bank, and found you
in that neglected canoe
—you’d chased them, too,
with my heart,
a padlock you’d rescued
for pennies on the dollar,
and handed it back to me,
warm, and melting like wax.
I’d never been able
to find the key,
but you unlocked it
with a poem in Latin,
so haunted, so beautiful,
and unchained all my wildflower tears.
© 2024 Jennifer Wagner