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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
Crow, I said,
that’s a stone in your beak,
not a seed.
But she didn’t stop
and kept tapping against the rock.
It split in two
and out came a parasite
which perched on her back.
It grew over time, over time, over time,
and crow bowed down
and died.
I lay on the bed
of her black feathers
and they turned white,
in my deepest January,
as snow fell,
lingering, drifting, layering,
while all burned up around me.
The feathered angel-kiss kept me
cold, safe and numb.
Arrows swarmed the air—
hissing, a warring beast
took aim, fired—
and then Thor’s arms came
and I flew
burning like a phoenix—
the foul dart,
pulled
from my back,
crushed in my taloned hand,
fell in fire, sulfur,
sand.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
In Your Deepest January at What’s Going On?