On the First of March,
the desert doesn’t know
it’s not even spring yet.
Summer tosses dandelions
through a hole in the sky.
With my face upturned,
I let them pelt me
with soft, moist tongues—
pollen making eye shadow,
powdery blush,
a soft dusting of body glitter.
With a strike of your hand
on my hip like a match,
we become a collision of stars,
a kilonova,
exploding, burnt.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
It was just a pinpoint of light,
a small hole punched in black—
but there they were—
the river voices
humming
like bees in wildflowers.
When the light grew,
I could see
them walking there, singing—
their limbs limber again,
these forebears—
naked, supple, strong,
who carried all of us
into the light.
They hollered over to me—
grandmothering
isn’t always a quiet affair—
Why, daughter, why
are you sitting in the dark?
These women who bore so many scars
marring their delicious skin,
harvesting beauty into baskets on their backs—
the petals of poetry made from sorrow
and wings
where in dreamstate I weep.
Pillars of fire, lyric pyres into my night—
I ran to them. Ran.
As only in dreams you can.
Ears hungry
for their grandmother
songs again,
to write them,
to journey on—
making dark beauty
from my own scars
naked in the light.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner
For dVerse Poetics and OLN
A few days ago, I burned
my collar bone
with a wide and sizzling
curling wand.
Next day, I spent the morning
picking oranges from my tree
(not in Venice, but charming nonetheless)
and scratched my hands up
on the fruit-filled, rough branches.
These self-inflicted wounds
look worse than they feel.
Handsome scars—evidence of
the messiness of living.
If only they were all that way.
© 2025 Jennifer Wagner