Balboa

Photo © 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rescued from the pool filter,

Balboa had a scratch

on the house on his back.

 

We set him in the garden

between two rosemary shrubs

(Romero in Spanish, like my son’s name,

 

who said, keep him, Mom,

and let him be a burden to your

children’s children).

 

While we searched for what to do,

I thought we’d lost him

to heat, to bird—but there,

stamping the grass,

 

the champ!

A late-round come back!

And between my index and thumb

 

we rushed him

to the pond.

Two large turtles

 

rose to the surface

poking their heads out.

I said, we rescued your baby!

 

And hoped

someone

will do the same.

 

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

Man Up

 

A dead bird

at five o’clock in the morning

on Father’s Day

lies in the grass

like a turned-up weed.

 

Bulletproof coffee

in one hand,

a lighter in another

to ward off tiny mosquitos

with a flick to the citronella candles,

I squint toward

the dead lump.

 

Man down!

cries a brother

while another lands close by

and flies off without a sound.

 

The air is already warm

and the sky is dusk in reverse.

Was it just his time

to go or was he just tired of it all?

 

A too-quick dog

wraps drooling jaws

around the carcass

before my son

gets to it with a garbage bag.

 

So, this is it.  Dogs and garbage bags

mark The End.

 

I go inside to make breakfast

for a man who has made me laugh

for 25 years

and became a father the first day he

said I do to us.

 

Man, up.

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

OLN