Donna Vorreyer

Suburban Pastoral     

Jane waits for the mail, that thick envelope
that will say accepted, blue and orange
sweatshirts in her future.The telescope
in the backyard slopes downward to singe
 
the ants. She hates the way her eyelashes
stick to the eyepiece, hates the hanging wire
blocking Jason’s window, his new mustache
sparking a tantalizing tongue of fire.
 
She plays catch with her brother, underhand,
while her father hammers the steaks, renders
bacon fat, the strips curling to ampersand.
He once beat her until she was tender,
 
but made sure she remained photogenic.
She dreams of dorms, distance, pomegranate.



--
Donna Vorreyer is the author of Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (Sundress Publications, 2016) and A House of Many Windows (Sundress Publications, 2013) as well as seven chapbooks, most recently Encantado, a collaboration with artist Matt Kish from Redbird Chapbooks. She serves as the reviews editor for Stirring: A Literary Collection. She has only four years left until retirement from her 30 plus years of teaching middle school in the Chicago suburbs, and sometimes it shows.