Ship Town

En Route

I slept, mostly.  The trip taking longer than usual.  Cat scratching holes in the blanket under her crate. Tranquilizers to little effect.  Grandma swigging Pepto Bismol and turning up George Jones.  Seattle Traffic.  My teenage self waking sleepily to this new life.

Arriving

Hotel hot and stuffy.  Summer late, as usual.  Voices all night outside.  Shadows visible only by the No Vacancy sign.  Mom too worried and stressed to sleep.  Smoking Virginia Slim after Virginia Slim. 

Of the ghosts we left behind, which would meet us here?

© 2017 Jennifer Wagner

The Gift

Sand shifts

this brittle, black driftwood mood

out to the inhaling sea

with a booming, insulting sneer,

carrying footprints of poems

I’ve neglected to write in the sting-crash of time.

But I won’t hear,

captivated watching you,

my favorite sanderlings,

prying open shells, beaks gleaming,

etching me poems,

wing tips in the sand.

© 2017 Jennifer Wagner

for my sons

dVerse:  Poetics “Gift” and OpenLinkNight

Thank You, April

April, I am starved for light,

bring a little, please,

to the window

where I can see summer

lolling about the hills afar off.

Ah, yes, I see her now,

shoeless in leaves of grass,

picking blackberries,

Sonnet 18 nearing couplet.

April, you’re a long way from summer,

but at least I can see her from here.

© 2017 Jennifer Wagner

“Distinctive realms appear to us when we look and hear by poem-light.” - Jane Hirshfield, Ten Windows.  Happy Poetry Month with appreciation to poems by Sandburg, Heaney and Shakespeare.