Florence

By the window,

lapping up the sun,

I read Rossetti’s, “The First Spring Day,”

and leaned my head against the pane

as if to become one

with blush blossoms

sprouting from the tree

and our neighbor’s sign

in bright yellow, pink and green:  hello spring.

Spring:  Florence Nightingale’s

cool kiss on the fevered brow of humanity.

Oh blow, swing your lamp—

your breath, meadowsweet,

your step, light, in our cimmerian war.

© 2020 Jennifer Wagner

dverse poetics:  in the time of the plague

Hope you all are well.  ~Love, Jen

“The First Spring Day” by Christina Rossetti

embrace

to forgive you

i had to go back,

bitterness falling like leaves

picking up stones,

gathering them

by the basketful—

my skin, arms, and back

riven and bloodied

with the buckling load

i’d intended to throw

with my calloused

and burning hands

but the sun on the leaves

that day in october

was so glorious,

and i felt so rich,

knew i was so rich, that

i laid the basket down

at your feet and

stretched out

my arms

bitterness falling, gently,

like leaves

© 2019 jennifer wagner

majestic poetics

Enough

How we hated Lamonts,

my aunt and I,

as her sister—my mother,

her mother—my grandma,

shopped and tried

on somebody else’s

soon-to-be clothes.

It was the smell,

we said,

or the way

it made us feel

confined

or defined

by dress or bra or shoe.

And leave to breathe,

fairly sprinting to her car,

in search of that bright patch of sky

that agreed

we were already enough.

© 2019 Jennifer Wagner

Poetry Pantry #495