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photo © jennifer wagner |
just for today, let’s
glory in the little
things,
swing as if our sky
doesn’t know
a hint
of night,
trip on daisies,
petal-clouds
of white,
fall down softly, dizzy,
with me
slide your fingers
across my lips
return to me
a hungry
kiss
© 2025 jennifer wagner
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photo © jennifer wagner |
for the word garden word list (dizzy, hungry, trip) and dverse q44 (hint)
photo 1: fabulous book
photo 2: fabulous ted de grazia painting from his gallery in the sun in tucson, az
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Congratulations!
You’ve won a
Colonoscopy!
Mammogram: check. Results are normal
but let’s have another check.
Blood draw: check.
Menopause: check, check, check.
Hot flashes! That’ll treat the cold of
all these needles and machines
and thinning skin.
An MRI, too! What fun!
All those joyous sounds!
Cervical spondylosis
is as sublime as it sounds,
so let’s strap this cage to your face
to keep the party going while we’re at it!
You didn’t hear that? Oh, it’s just as well.
Forgot your readers? That’s OK, too.
Can’t remember?
You won’t want to, anyway—
but enjoy!
We’re just getting started with you!
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
What Cold Is at What’s Going On
I don’t know
if I told you today
I love the way your beard oil
lingers on my fingers,
the way I get to smell you
even after you’ve left me
in this old house,
in the corner of the room,
with my desk and bookshelf
in just-right light
streaming in from the windows.
All of which
you put together
because you believe
in these words I write.
Have I told you today
I cried again,
thinking about that longing look
in your eyes,
wondering if I am pleased with this—
your offering? How it
swallows me whole
as if the pieces of me
aren’t lying scattered here—
while you only see
the All
of me?
How often you say
I am much more to you
than any of these ripped-up, jagged
parts.
Is this an ode? Possibly.
You are my silver-crowned king,
though some might shrink at what thoughts
those antique, unfashionable words might bring.
I say them because
you have me, All,
and treat me like your queen.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
Coming up on 27 years with this man.
There it was
sticking up from the soil
like a skeletal hand from the crypt.
I didn’t expect it,
and to be honest,
I had stopped looking down
for quite a while.
It split my heel open
and curled around my ankle—
how could I
let it do me like this?
Strong
hold.
And now,
this ghost snake
has coiled around my insides—
my demons
barking out
ancient names
as if they’re in charge.
I can’t stop the tremoring
of a thin flame running through me,
a living Siberian ice maiden
with mercury blade.
It seems
this grief has no rules
and neither do
the nightmares I feel condemned to relive
while the mirror of my self-respect
asks me
if I really want to keep
doing this to myself.
Do you?
Do you?
Do you?
Just
stop.
Stop.
But, torment, too,
has no rules
when you’re split in two,
offering no answers
to questions
I can’t quite
bring myself to ask—
the mirrored me
begging to fracture completely
the us
I am
or bury the pretty,
dead-white, petal fist
in mudblood
until I am whole, and strong
enough,
to crush it
again.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner