Two Poems

Elizabeth Wager

Taking a Shower After Yardwork

I’ve known pain like this before: palms on fire, 

shoulders come undone, knees rasping. I haven’t 

raked leaves in years; my body spells out 

retribution in my muscles. Blooming between heart 

and head lines, blisters sting under the hot water, 

which drains rusty—blood, or dirt, or both. 

It’s getting colder out, days growing shorter, dark 

clouds edging in at corners of sky. I tell myself 

I am too young to find meaning in any of it. 

My shampoo smells like cherry trees, my hair 

is soft under my fingers, and it’s almost time for lunch. 

Tomorrow, the sun will set one minute earlier, 

and this pain will be replaced by another kind

of pain, and—if I’m lucky—another, and another.

Ghazal for the Month in Which I Was Born

I was born on a Monday—fair of face, and Virgo by design—in September.

Leaves begin their rusting, but summer still blue-flowers the sky in September.

When the onion tops began to yellow and wilt, we’d pull them up, rub the dirt

from the bulbs, and braid the tails. We’d hang them in the shed to dry in September.

The ninth month of the year—conceived in January’s chill, but stubborn

in refusing to change its name: the Sept- a forgivable, lovable lie in September.

Starting every June, the planet leans her head toward one massive, starry

shoulder, and for one single, perfect moment, day and night align in September.

Five years apart, my grandmothers died on the same day: my sister’s birthday.

She was born in April—lilac’s month, the cruelest by far—I, in September.

A month like a windowsill—summer within, autumn without—white curtains

and the gold trees of liminal days: nothing quite hello or goodbye in September.

Elizabeth means the oath of God: I am the divine promise of flower and fire,

the harvest and the equinox—named into this, into my birthright, in September.