Underneath

 

Photo © Jennifer Wagner

They tell you

the desert is a liar.

 

But I say,

it’s a revealer of secrets.

 

There is no blistering

the sun can’t reveal,

 

no buried corpse

the sun won’t bleach.

 

The dark and wet

obscure things,

 

but lay your hand

on the desert at night,

 

its blue darkness

will rise up in you—

 

tremoring like cicadas

somewhere far off,

 

rumbling underneath,

black

 

to match your puddled eyes

and clinging, savage hair—

 

black, to pull the darkness

stretching out into the light.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

 

You Are There

The stars are wish enough

with the grass

soft and cool beneath me,

the sky, dark,

but for those

indomitable lights

cradled in the expanse

of something bigger.

Content to be small

in the midst of so much

declaration, I,

the sky, earth, lit

and knit together

like Joseph’s sweater

in love lavished, brightly

cloaked favor,

find truth,

revelation.

© 2019 Jennifer Wagner

Joseph’s sweater:  Joseph’s tunic given to him by his father in Genesis 37.

Revelation 4:11