Fitz

 

The Fitzgeralds

were aptly named.

 

Shiny and red-faced

on the pickleball court—

 

he, with red bandana,

she, in red bows.

 

He, throwing his weight around,

she, throwing her racket down.

 

Fitzi’s stomping around

in a big red huff

 

like cardinals, territorial,

entitled—

 

in a tiff,

in a fuss

 

after the game—

us, smirking, victorious.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

PAD Day 5:  write an “After (blank)” poem.  I followed the prompt, except for using it for my title.

NaPoWriMo 

 

Cardinals are territorial and pugnacious and have even been known to fight their own reflections. 

The above poem is loosely based on a mini-pickleball tournament my husband and I surprised ourselves, and the reigning champs, by winning…smirk.

 

Phainopepla

 

You might have red eyes, too,

if you’d been up all night

consuming mistletoe

 

by the bunches.

 

But maybe you know what

I mean.

What a mess—

 

why did I treat that party

like

it was 1999?

 

Phaino-pass-the pepto, please.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Phainopeplas have red eyes and consume an abundance of desert mistletoe.  Also, Day 4 and I’m already feeling it—pass the poetry Pepto ;-)

 

PAD Day 4:  write a mess poem

NaPoWriMo Day 4

(image above found in the public domain)

Two Things

 

 

She says she’s ready to go

and I know she means

two things at once.

 

I feel selfish for wanting her to mean

only one—

 

to stay with us a little longer

enjoying the hummingbird blanket I bought her

(she says it’s her favorite),

and the chocolates she loves

(at 95 I’ve introduced her to something new),

to hear her stories

of when she first moved to Phoenix

with her beloved, 71 years ago.

 

But bones are breaking in her spine

and cataracts and histoplasmosis

from the Ohio River Valley

make it so she can’t see much anymore.

 

She wants to go home

and Home.

 

Holding onto my hands

a little longer at the Rehab Center,

I hear a fluttering, a humming

I recognize as goodbye.

 

And so, this poem,

meant to explain, to show and not tell,

to show and to tell,

 

why I am a poet and not something else—

sits here between two things—

 

where else can I put

all the joy and pain

held in between

these brief but beautiful wings.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

NaPoWriMo Day 3

dVerse free verse