I lose my footing on the blue trail. A snow is coming.
Your gut goes mute.
A dark painting appears in the stairwell. You identify it with an app.
Inside spring, the reflection of spring. A book of spells from
the childhood before yours, the mother before yours, standing
at the bathroom mirror in the warm morning light,
wondering if she is expecting you.
Photos of ghosts, stock footage.
Your orchid is blooming, very slowly, for a third time, as your mother
recovers from a virus, as your father arranges imaging appointments
of his left heart, as a flower grows inside your sister’s stomach.
She will ask you to take care of it one day, and you already know what you will say.
Julia Anna Morrison has an MFA from The University of Iowa and her work has recently appeared in Poetry Northwest, The Adroit Journal, and The North American Review. Anna teaches at The University of Iowa and co-edits Two Peach, an online literary journal, with Catherine Pond. You can find her at www.juliannamorrison.com.