He sweeps back my tangled mess of hair,
kisses my neck and murmurs,
you taste like the sea.
My mermaid net collects this pearled moment,
like shells, like beach glass, in a jar on my desk,
soft-colored and smooth to the touch,
pressing them into a poem-cup, like a sip of the sea.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
Poetic Bloomings: Collections & Gatherings
Nestled inside
the fifth largest city in the USA,
between little bookshops and mom-and-pops,
where people came to recover from
TB and asthma all those years ago,
they knew something then.
Some say
the signs are everywhere.
Well, there was at least this one. Planted like a
flag under a slope of sunny sky.
I circled back. Another look
with a tear in my eye. Your healing blurry
but nearer.
Why worry? It said. Dead end.
Somehow it seems contradictory,
as if we should, anyway.
As if worrying is doing something.
But, like the sign says, it is. Taking the
worry road
just brings us one step closer to dead.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
What’s Going On? Contradictions
Photo: street sign in the Sunnyslope area of Phoenix, AZ © 2025 Jennifer Wagner