The frost is eating the bellflowers
I once loved. Each morning, I break
to a new grief. If prayer begins
in the belly of the heart, then so do I.
Bridget, I am sleepwalking again.
I am in the woods again and the trees
keep opening their mouths. When I sing, lichen
bursts from my lips. There is no sweeter song
than this: when you dream me, I find you.
Petrichor, our true north.
The goldfinches are returning. You’ve cut
your hair again. When it rains, tell me we grow
back into the feathers we were born with.
Tell me all good stories end like this.
Can you see the stars where you are?
My winter swells with fog and light.
It is the same every dawn, stripping the bark
from my hair. Only the snow can bring me
to tears anymore. I am mounding dirt
over broken robin eggs. It is too early
for swans to wing-touch our promises over the lake.
–
Mary Simmons is a queer poet from Cleveland, Ohio. She is an MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University, where she is the managing editor for Mid-American Review. She has work in or forthcoming from Moon City Review, One Art, Yalobusha Review, tiny wren lit, and others.