Donna Vorreyer
MAKING TEA, I REMEMBER A LONG AGO SUMMER
Honey hanging from the thickened dipper
becomes
a stream of spit from my teasing brother’s mouth,
summer heat and hose water shimmering the scene
becomes
my mother’s favorite scrimshaw pendant swinging as
she leans down to separate us with her smile and half-hum
This is the hinge of memory: a slim wooden stick
becoming
the paddle of a canoe to row me across the brain lake
and into the reeds, singing a hosanna:
what was
still is
and will always be
sweet
Donna Vorreyer is the author of Unrivered (forthcoming, 2025), 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 hosts the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey and is a co-founder/editor of the new journal Asterales: A Journal
of Arts & Letters.