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 and teaches middle school in the suburbs of Chicago.
The Hag Advises the Pretty Girl
This knowledge exists as much in the leaf
as in the blood – good is hidden in the form
of a rat or a mushroom as often as a feathery
coronal or the fresh twigs of a beech.
You don’t know the world as well as I do.
You still want pomp and parade while
a stork’s nest decorates my chimney,
and my pot is filled with poor, despised
herbs, steeped and roasted and broken.
You say you cannot sleep alone.
You ask how I can bear a bed of straw
and isolation. But I shall get my kisses.
A dram and a bit of bread will be my feast,
and while you huddle lonely awaiting a prince,
I will tend lovers by a fire, so many
red sparks among the ashes, mounting
the chimney straight up to the sun.