If none of this makes sense, well then

 

To be happy

you must name your children

after wolves

or parakeets

(see them run, see them hunt, see them chirp and fly).

 

To be happy, truly,

you must go out after dark

and squint

until you see something

(you know what I mean).

 

What I’m telling you is,

to be happy

you must grab a bag of Cheetos

 

and crayons

and sit poolside

like a loony

whispering love notes

to the sky

 

(write them down,

make a poem

in color,

and lick your fingers).

 

Just do it.

You’ll feel better,

trust me.

 

 

© 2025 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?

 

Gone but Not Forgotten

It was a baby boy.  I had him.  My movements were exact.  I checked myself in.  A door to a room, another door, a room.  There, amongst scraps of old, used fabric, in blues, and browns, and creams, soft, and good for quilt-making, he came.  My swaddled babe.  But I was alone, with babe in my arms, and out of the room, out the door, out of the room, out the door.  He never left with me.

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

Prose poem/description of a dream

I have dreams a few times a year in which I have a baby.  Sometimes I think they may have something to do with the ones I lost in miscarriages, though maybe the dreams symbolize something else altogether.  Of course, dreams can also just be dreams.  At any rate, they do always remind me how heroic it is to become a mother.  So, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this.  You are amazing.  

 

oln