stay

 

you ask me to

and i don’t know how to answer

 

i want to

know

 

what it’s like to stay

now

 

so much

in that look

 

my cells

multiplying

 

like time-lapse

photosynthesis

 

curling myself

around that

 

one

word

 

as if

light

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

Poetry

When you found me

I was face up in snow,

 

crows pecking my neck,

 

my voice box removed

in bloody clumps around me,

 

my eyes staring straight up

at clouds meant for someone else’s rain.

 

But you

 

enclosed my hand around a lightning bolt

and I stood up—

 

my voice a thunderclap

scattering dark birds to the storm-crackled sky.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

What is "it" about Poetry?

 

The Wedding Gift

The chime is engraved

with a lighthouse,

a harbor,

a ship on the sea.

It hangs from the eaves

above our deck

and has, for nearly

seventeen years,

sprinkled its tune

at every house

we've called home.

It fell

            once,

in a major storm,

was never broken, but

lay serenely

at our feet

waiting--

ready to give light, melody.

And though

I tire of wind,

of storms,

it's taught me to listen,

             hope,

                       trust light

and

play on.

© 2015 Jennifer Wagner

For dVerse Poetics