If You Can’t Love Me
Things weep unexpected—
the nose, an eye—as soft as
a red ribbon from a pocket,
a release of pressure as painful
as crowning a child,
the face cracking like a pelvis
and then, what other things
live inside you, can be coaxed
out, wet and alive. Come
into the light so I
can make you feel
something like this,
if not for me, because of,
if not for me, because.
Sara Moore Wagner is the author of the chapbook Hooked Through (Five Oaks Press, 2017). Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Gigantic Sequins, Alyss, Reservoir, The Wide Shore, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and Arsenic Lobster, among others, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. She lives in Cincinnati with her filmmaker husband Jon and their children, Daisy, Vivienne, and Cohen, where she teaches at Xavier and Northern Kentucky University. Find her at www.saramoorewagner.com.
