d o m i n i q u e w a g n e r
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I am becoming a reflection of fragility.
I am learning to turn
a love seat into
a bed made for my body
sweats: constellations of pearls, I want to web
it together —
up from the chest,
an added
breath at that moment
lungs are merciful,
a necklace of crystal.
Geometry of limbs —
I never learned to find the area
of my abdomen my pelvis my
body never to be
woken & aware,
it contours, it creaks.
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The birds
spit up the chronology
of caterpillars
that night
I picked rice paper
saturated
with watercolor from
the basil or the figs
or the branches or the wishing well.
The Fall has never felt more
like mud.
I imagine my leather dry
leaves, for my mother
cadmium fingernails.
Yesterday the nurse said tomorrow.
*** I remember the past when purple
twigs were found
on the hardwood
drying in the creaks
on the stairs
I raked them into paper
bag lanterns
poured candle wax, my fingers molded.
Love of ontology
on the living room mantel
did her skin become tree bark?
a row of broken frames.
*** Later I dreamt of writing
with pomegranate juice.
And she returns in the morning,
thin hair
gauze pillows for moths
limbs like roots
if I arrange my mother like that.
A laundry basket
of bedsheets.
Whoever she was
left the drapes to drift.
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DOMINIQUE WAGNER is currently a MFA candidate at Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Hyphen, Apiary Magazine, & is forthcoming in Pretty Owl Poetry Journal. She lives in Chicago with her handsome dog, Ernest. |
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a l i c e b l u e t w e n t y - f i v e I S S N 1 5 5 9 - 6 5 6 7 |