{"id":13748,"date":"2020-06-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/three-poems-by-sara-moore-wagner\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:31:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:31:02","slug":"three-poems-by-sara-moore-wagner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2020\/06\/01\/three-poems-by-sara-moore-wagner\/","title":{"rendered":"Invasive Spotted Lanternfly Close to Ohio Border, Tableau Vivant, &amp; Yarn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links is-content-justification-right is-layout-flex wp-container-core-social-links-is-layout-765c4724 wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-facebook  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61556140010887\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12c0 5 3.7 9.1 8.4 9.9v-7H7.9V12h2.5V9.8c0-2.5 1.5-3.9 3.8-3.9 1.1 0 2.2.2 2.2.2v2.5h-1.3c-1.2 0-1.6.8-1.6 1.6V12h2.8l-.4 2.9h-2.3v7C18.3 21.1 22 17 22 12c0-5.5-4.5-10-10-10z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-instagram  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/boudin_mcneese\/\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12,4.622c2.403,0,2.688,0.009,3.637,0.052c0.877,0.04,1.354,0.187,1.671,0.31c0.42,0.163,0.72,0.358,1.035,0.673 c0.315,0.315,0.51,0.615,0.673,1.035c0.123,0.317,0.27,0.794,0.31,1.671c0.043,0.949,0.052,1.234,0.052,3.637 s-0.009,2.688-0.052,3.637c-0.04,0.877-0.187,1.354-0.31,1.671c-0.163,0.42-0.358,0.72-0.673,1.035 c-0.315,0.315-0.615,0.51-1.035,0.673c-0.317,0.123-0.794,0.27-1.671,0.31c-0.949,0.043-1.233,0.052-3.637,0.052 s-2.688-0.009-3.637-0.052c-0.877-0.04-1.354-0.187-1.671-0.31c-0.42-0.163-0.72-0.358-1.035-0.673 c-0.315-0.315-0.51-0.615-0.673-1.035c-0.123-0.317-0.27-0.794-0.31-1.671C4.631,14.688,4.622,14.403,4.622,12 s0.009-2.688,0.052-3.637c0.04-0.877,0.187-1.354,0.31-1.671c0.163-0.42,0.358-0.72,0.673-1.035 c0.315-0.315,0.615-0.51,1.035-0.673c0.317-0.123,0.794-0.27,1.671-0.31C9.312,4.631,9.597,4.622,12,4.622 M12,3 C9.556,3,9.249,3.01,8.289,3.054C7.331,3.098,6.677,3.25,6.105,3.472C5.513,3.702,5.011,4.01,4.511,4.511 c-0.5,0.5-0.808,1.002-1.038,1.594C3.25,6.677,3.098,7.331,3.054,8.289C3.01,9.249,3,9.556,3,12c0,2.444,0.01,2.751,0.054,3.711 c0.044,0.958,0.196,1.612,0.418,2.185c0.23,0.592,0.538,1.094,1.038,1.594c0.5,0.5,1.002,0.808,1.594,1.038 c0.572,0.222,1.227,0.375,2.185,0.418C9.249,20.99,9.556,21,12,21s2.751-0.01,3.711-0.054c0.958-0.044,1.612-0.196,2.185-0.418 c0.592-0.23,1.094-0.538,1.594-1.038c0.5-0.5,0.808-1.002,1.038-1.594c0.222-0.572,0.375-1.227,0.418-2.185 C20.99,14.751,21,14.444,21,12s-0.01-2.751-0.054-3.711c-0.044-0.958-0.196-1.612-0.418-2.185c-0.23-0.592-0.538-1.094-1.038-1.594 c-0.5-0.5-1.002-0.808-1.594-1.038c-0.572-0.222-1.227-0.375-2.185-0.418C14.751,3.01,14.444,3,12,3L12,3z M12,7.378 c-2.552,0-4.622,2.069-4.622,4.622S9.448,16.622,12,16.622s4.622-2.069,4.622-4.622S14.552,7.378,12,7.378z M12,15 c-1.657,0-3-1.343-3-3s1.343-3,3-3s3,1.343,3,3S13.657,15,12,15z M16.804,6.116c-0.596,0-1.08,0.484-1.08,1.08 s0.484,1.08,1.08,1.08c0.596,0,1.08-0.484,1.08-1.08S17.401,6.116,16.804,6.116z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Instagram<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Sara Moore Wagner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:25px\"><strong>Invasive Spotted Lanternfly Close to Ohio Border<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">It\u2019s a mirror of a lantern,<br>it hangs over the garden,<br>sways back and forth on the finger<br>of the fern, outstretched. Semi-<br>translucent, wrapped in red, crimson<br>as the bottom of a well in the morning,<br>lit up. It echoes the ladybug, that little<br>red baby, state insect of Ohio. When<br>our children go out in the morning, they<br>capture it in a cup, bring it<br>to their grandmother who warns them<br>a ladybug eats the aphids and in the winter,<br>it sleeps. Not this beast who pierces<br>the foliage until the plant starts to leak,<br>spilling itself over the leaves. And when<br>something spills and no one cleans it up,<br>the mold\u2014the rot. Loss, ruin, end\u2014words<br>the children understand. Think<br>of all the ornamental trees, apples,<br>peach, all these mothers who carry<br>gifts and fling them into the yard full<br>of little seeds or fat stones, as we<br>are. Children, you carry your own fat<br>stones wrapped with meat. Be careful<br>what you bring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:25px\"><strong>Tableau Vivant<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Around the table in the coffee shop, we are mothers,<br>wire and cord, we live inside ourselves and in our bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">We pull our babies up to our laps and sway, the room is awake,<br>it breathes with us and we say, <em>isn\u2019t it nice to be in it together<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Maybe one day we\u2019ll have arms so skinny, the whole world will move<br>through them, we\u2019ll stand next to each other, filter<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">every sound into this living table where we sit and say <em>how beautiful<br>you look, so thin<\/em>. We carry pictures on our phones<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">of the airbrushed woman we could be, her pores so clear we can see through<br>her like the window in the coffee shop where our children stand, looking out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">No one orders food, we put empty spoons to our mouths<br>over and over, we carry empty coffee cups\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><em>Can\u2019t you see what\u2019s happening to me<\/em>, we say,<br>pointing to the bags beneath our eyes, the lines<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">forming on this round table, how polite we have grown,<br>how we push everything down like hair into a drain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:25px\"><strong>Yarn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">When I carried you<br>inside me like chickweed<br>in a garden, I was 25 and just<br>learning to save my money,<br>to have a bank account, to vomit<br>quietly into a trashcan, to hold<br>onto my receipts. On the long flight<br>back from Korea, alone<br>with you in my swollen belly,<br>I imagined what would happen<br>if you were born then,<br>in that stuffy airplane aisle, miles<br>above the ocean stretching<br>out below us like a tarp.<br>What you might see<br>in a mother like me. I<br>teeter over the edge of every<br>wing\u2014 hold so tight onto girlhood<br>my knuckles and teeth crack. And then,<br>how I\u2019d rock you, newborn, in your grandma\u2019s<br>basement where we lived after, where<br>you slept beneath the slant of window<br>in a pack \u2018n play and I\u2019d slip out<br>my nipple from your blistered gums<br>to force in droplets of vitamin D.<br>We were both so yellow:<br>you, jaundiced and I as tender<br>as an old bruise. Baby, we learned<br>to sleep again, next to each other,<br>your fingers tight around my finger<br>or tangled in my hair.<br>I\u2019d wear you strapped to my chest<br>and even when you weren\u2019t next to me,<br>I\u2019d smell you on my shirt, your sweat<br>and spit up so fresh my breasts<br>would swell with milk and longing.<br>You learned to speak so early,<br>your pink cheeks puffing out words<br>like broccoli, froggy, love. And then,<br>you learned to read.<br>You were a child carried through the sky<br>and I was a girl learning to dress you<br>right, to bake, to feed you.<br>I didn\u2019t know how to stay<br>anywhere or with anyone<br>before you. I would leave<br>the country, my mother\u2014<br>This is all to say I know what I lost<br>when I took us out of that little world<br>where you\u2019d sleep at the foot<br>of my bed while I studied for the GRE<br>with a tiny light to not wake you. Where<br>your little blonde head would be above<br>me like a sun each morning. I see you<br>miss it as I do. Before your sisters<br>and stepfather wake it\u2019s just us and we lay<br>together on the couch, your feet<br>in my lap, your face. The mornings<br>unravel and outside at the bus stop,<br>your steps get wider, you take two steps<br>at a time. You\u2019ve stopped waving<br>out the window. How empty the sky<br>is now. How full this life. I thought<br>we had more time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/saramoorewagne1\"><strong>Sara Moore Wagner<\/strong><\/a> lives in West Chester, OH with her husband and three small children. She is the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award, and the author of the chapbook <em>Hooked Through<\/em> (Five Oaks Press, 2017). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals including <em>Poet Lore<\/em>, <em>Waxwing<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cincinnatireview.com\/micro\/micro-like-i-wont-take-something-from-you-by-sara-moore-wagner\/\"><em>The Cincinnati Review<\/em><\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/fairytalereview.com\/2019\/11\/08\/because-a-sharp-girl-must-be-a-changeling\/\"><em>The Fairy Tale Review<\/em><\/a>, among others. She has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart prize, and Best of the Net. Find her at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saramoorewagner.com\">www.saramoorewagner.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>__________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"438\" height=\"211\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg 438w, https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 438px) 100vw, 438px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\">&lt;&lt; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2020\/06\/10\/two-poems-by-stephanie-athena-valente\/\">Back<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2020\/05\/22\/drivers-ed-by-david-armand\/\">Next<\/a> &gt;&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">To learn more about submitting your work to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/boudin-submissions\/\">Boudin<\/a><\/em> or applying to McNeese State University&#8217;s Creative Writing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/mfa-application-submissions\/\">MFA program<\/a>, please visit Submissions for details.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sara Moore Wagner __________ Invasive Spotted Lanternfly Close to Ohio Border It\u2019s a mirror of a lantern,it hangs over the garden,sways back and forth on the fingerof the fern, outstretched. Semi-translucent, wrapped in red, crimsonas the bottom of a well in the morning,lit up. It echoes the ladybug, that littlered baby, state insect of Ohio.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[252,17],"tags":[75,77,97,18],"class_list":["post-13748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boudin-2020","category-poetry","tag-boudin","tag-mcneesereview","tag-saramoorewagner","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13748"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22360,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13748\/revisions\/22360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}