Gone but Not Forgotten

It was a baby boy.  I had him.  My movements were exact.  I checked myself in.  A door to a room, another door, a room.  There, amongst scraps of old, used fabric, in blues, and browns, and creams, soft, and good for quilt-making, he came.  My swaddled babe.  But I was alone, with babe in my arms, and out of the room, out the door, out of the room, out the door.  He never left with me.

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

Prose poem/description of a dream

I have dreams a few times a year in which I have a baby.  Sometimes I think they may have something to do with the ones I lost in miscarriages, though maybe the dreams symbolize something else altogether.  Of course, dreams can also just be dreams.  At any rate, they do always remind me how heroic it is to become a mother.  So, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this.  You are amazing.  

 

oln

my hipparchus

 

mapping the stars

on my back

you don’t ask me

for anything—

 

and let me cry

to forget what’s happened

between now

and the last good year

 

you don’t ask

for anything—so i can

remember how

to give the stars their names again

 

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

for dverse quadrille #175:  craft a poem in exactly 44 words using some form of the word “map”

 

Life Lessons for a Poet

 

Read one good poem a day.

Look up.

For every negative thought, think three positives. Because this life hurts too much already.

Duct tape your ugly mouth.  You are amazing and stop saying otherwise.

When all else fails, pray.

Everything will fail.  Pray.

Think of the children.

Talk a walk in nature.  Breathe it in.  Don’t forget what you learned there.

Remember: someone needs you.

Remember: you need, too.

Write, damn it.  That’s how you know what you need to know.  It’s your gift.  To yourself.

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

Missing, 1979

 

Window.  A little rain splatter

on such a large space.

 

Wide eyes straining

to catch a glimpse of brown,

tiny, quick-dashing paws.

 

Any sight from any side of the road?

Darkness darker. 

 

Sinking deeper into the depths

of the well-worn olive green

jacquard couch,

 

a little rain splatter

on such a large space.

 

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

 For dVerse Poetics: Window Gazing

Old Age

 

Piano Lesson by AquaSixio on DeviantArt

I’d forgotten how to play, they said—

my hair like feathers, hands like talons.

But, notes fall out of the very air I breathe.

 

Listen—you can hear plumes, chases in moonlight,

blood on snow, forgotten prairies,

untouched fields, the glorious soaring.

 

By the end, they were pulling Kleenex from the box.

Yes, I’d forgotten.  More than they’ll ever learn.

 

Gray is a color, too.

 

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

For this very cool picture prompt at The Sunday Muse.

 

Dedicated to my 93-year-old neighbor, Mary.

 

Lift (For My Son)

And this, my very heart,

is the weight of water

like blood

bending the blooms,

smoke and mist graying tulips,

ash on butterflies’ wings.

My very heart! We bury

our dead selves

swollen but dry,

and in this come alive—the lift

in rain

and rain and rain again.

My very heart, see!

Instead of the weight, the gray, the ash—

the bloom,

the color,

the wings.

© 2020 Jennifer Wagner