Paper Dolls, 1950’s Single Mother

butter she

mixed with sugar

and fed to us

on saltine crackers

we washed it down

with powdered milk

we were poor

we were rich

we didn’t know either

until we

went to school

and our dolls of paper,

worthless

to friends whose had

vinyl and mohair

and real clothes,

became priceless

because

she’d made

them all

by hand

for Mom and for Grandma (Elaine Rogers, 1926 – 2010)

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

added to The Poetry Pantry

Noonday Jackals

Her thoughts took a dark turn

like jackals in the threadbare sun

ripping, ripping until she couldn’t see

herself, now a carcass of once-sought dreams;

a bone-hollow skeleton

stripped of all marrow by which future is made,

where the ink dried within.

Blood, first red then black, gathered in pools

around her head

until the ears spilled no more.

She’d done it to drown out the howling—

for who can bear the noise

of a broken heart?

The muting of syndicate

mocking and whimpering replete,

she worked the metallic taste of hate off her tongue.

It lingered though and became bitter

so she used her teeth to bite into its flesh

for nothing other than to taste a mellowing of salt.

A waft of perfume lingered in the cloying rot,

the remnant of her identity laying in the dust

while the air spilled with the scent of her decay;

a lone paper, yellowed and curled at the corners,

rattled in a wisp of wind.

A cloud began to form on the horizon,

a growing mist of dry, kicked-up earth,

swirling and choking the throat of tortuous barbs.

The cyclonic reclamation filled the desert of scars and loneliness,

returned sinew and marrow, blood and ink

to the supine form of the battered giant

of a dream so big the rabid enemy of her soul

was lost for strategy to bring down.

  

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11

added to dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight , Poets United Poetry Pantry
and imaginary garden with real toads

Summer Crickets

we held them

in an empty jar

holes popped into the lid

trickling grasses

and bits of dirt

to make their new home

they were always gone

by morning

set free as we slept

by grandpa

saving them

for tomorrow’s hunt

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

The Telling

she carpeted her windswept fears with conversational banality

every time he chanced upon her truths

when those raw elements exuded from her blood to her tissues

she could hold them back no longer

she had no more strength to restrain

those flooding fibers,

the secret self, less understood but more familiar even

than the blouse of self-belittlements she had grown accustomed to

with tremulous hand she peeled back the covers of her deathbed

confession

when the things she could never say

began to drip, horrifyingly, from her lips

she knew she’d been dying to tell him

it was death not to

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner 
Linked in the 1st Anniversary Edition of dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight

Unsung Rain

I held you in my hands,

cupped you to my face,

drenched myself in your flood,

and hid tears in your presence

                        as a secret we shared.

Your music put me to sleep

and drowned the echo of sorrows

in long nights you rocked me,

showering drops against the pane

—were you begging to be let in?

When you stayed until the morning

washing and making things new,

I’d wake and sing my insensitive song,

frowning, I’d begin…

“Rain, rain go away…"

Even then you would sigh,

contentedly, from heaven;

peering sheepishly from behind clouds

as I wiped the sugars off my mouth

from the fruits that were your labor.

Never did you seek applause of me,

always willing to play sidekick, straight man, to our comedic sun

while I laughed among flowered mornings

that without you

                        would never have been quite so sweet.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

in Carry on Tuesday and Poets United Poetry Pantry