Faith is Believing What You Cannot

         with a line from Shakespeare’s Pericles

The windows in March show trailers of sun followed by a feature of sleet and hail. A liminal month, one where the clock steals the morning light. And when it snows in April, we grin and call it sprinter. Midwestern badge of honor, trading warmth for bravado. Such false pretty, the budding trees so inviting, but once outside the wind bites hard. The birds return—ducks float through ice still lacing the surface of the lake, and geese hiss pissy tantrums at any trespass. Robins twitter their sweet racket as I wake, and cardinals feather the backyard pines, bright trails of memory, signs from heaven, it is said, proof that departed loved ones are near. I want to believe this—I want it to be my mother winging through the yard, nesting in the dogwoods on the sunny side of the house. See, where she comes, apparelled like the spring? Her best red, heart on her wings, singing. 

DONNA VORREYER

Donna Vorreyer is the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story Is an Apocalypse Story (2016), and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. She serves as an associate editor for Rhino Poetry and hosts the monthly online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.