Poetry Series: "the daylily / six" by Dameion Wagner
Each petal is susceptible to
your touch. Fragile as a
shadow. Thin like an ant’s leg.
The pressure from the pad of
a thumb and the center of
your finger. Enough that the
color might leak, stray with
light of the morning that falls
on a lark.
I wonder what violence will
find me today. A deer’s teeth.
A trowel. An errant wind. A
child’s wish to upend
something beautiful.
Innocence is what is left
untouched. And you have
touched me.
Dameion Wagner lives and works in Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has appeared in Crab Creek Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Tilde: A Literary Journal, Cider Press Review, and most recently Bear Review. His reviews appear in Heavy Feather Review, The Rumpus, and The Adroit Journal. He was nominated for the Sundress Publications '2020 Best of the Net Anthology,’ is a 2018 recipient of the Academy of American Poets University Prize (“Momma's Boy,” poets.org), and won Miami University’s 2017 Jordan- Goodman Poetry Prize. Milk & Cake Press published his first full-length collection, Bird Wild (2020).
