Donna Vorreyer

from “We Build Houses of Our Bodies Just to Tear Them Down”

A hole in the roof lets in the summer rain. We want to be useful, set rolled shingles on a ladder-strewn lawn. But you are the wary sort, distant as film or little figs, and I am the sweater where seams spun from a quiet housemaid’s hands don’t match. We study angles, draw diagrams, consult charts. I touch your face and we lock, quickly pass all neatly-numbered thinking. The bed grimaces at our wildness, our disarray. Tomorrow we will begin to nail it down.

 

Donna Vorreyer is a Chicago-area writer who spends her days teaching middle school, trying to convince teenagers that words matter. Her work has appeared in many journals including Rhino, Linebreak, Cider Press Review, Stirring, Sweet, wicked alice, and Weave. Her fourth chapbook, We Build Houses of Our Bodies, is forthcoming this year from Dancing Girl Press; in addition, her first full-length poetry collection, A House of Many Windows, is slated for release in 2013 from Sundress Publications. She also serves as a poetry editor for Mixed Fruit magazine. Visit her online at www.donnavorreyer.com.