Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Coyote

 

Today I write poems.

The hard ones.

The worst and best to write.

 

Regret at how I hurt you

as you were so little

while my fears were so big

and so looming.

 

I am sorry.

I am fool enough to think

these words may be enough.

 

Looking out the window

at the fog that got us both,

I know this is how you, feel, too—

lost, unseeing.

 

I don’t know when you will understand

and shake off your winter coat

and run, orange fur escaping into the sun

and meadows I kept you from.

Go now, I pray.

 

Your bruisings I will hold in my heart, I hope,

if allowed,

so you may be free

 

from this tumbleweed field

where I birthed you,

where my eyelashes are becoming weighted down

by dust.

 

Go, go, and remember the best of us.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Swallowed Up

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of my bones,

a shy sweetheart, guarded.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of my heart,

a promised ark, departed.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of the storm,

where it started.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of a hawk,

hope, disregarded.

 

Swallowed up

in the belly of a crow,

the dream, a shell, discarded.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

Word Garden Word List

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Inferno

 

I dreamt your house

was on fire.

 

It was glorious.

 

I sat watching

with a bowl of popcorn

in my hands,

feet up, but then

stood up

because it was

 

Just

So

Good.

 

Your bastards ran screaming

like rats bailing

shipwreck.

 

You were quickly trying to sell

your other properties

to cover the damage,

cover your tracks,

but you were exposed—

your toxicity burning bright flames

and black smoke into the night.

 

It’s sad the way I carry

your cancer around with me,

scrubbed like Silkwood,

wet from tears,

splotchy from the rough handling.

 

Maybe one day I’ll show up

with lawyers and evidence and therapists

and sue your ugly, fat, creepy, meddling,

manipulative, controlling asses.

 

My last will and testament reads,

if ever I’m found dead in my car

before then,

with no explanation for the wreck,

 

there’ll be a church by the side of the road

trying to steal my body

and feed it to their fellowship flames

wiping blood from their cult-stained hands.

 

But, not to worry,

until then I’ll be cutting pieces out,

rolling them up in poems for Jesus,

 

and you know what He can do with a whip.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner