Easter

by Jennifer Bullis

The state of my belief: 
a door to nowhere left ajar.

A mustang once corralled
gone feral again—but now with memory
of fences.

Old well filled with rocks
boarded over to prevent someone
from falling in.

An agreement to at least look 
at the daffodils—
toxic to touch the sap or to ingest, 
but enchanting from the field’s edge.

Blizzard-scarred katsura tree 
sprouting peach-brown leaf-buds.

Last fall’s potatoes pulled from the cellar,
sweaty and questionable.

An empty purple robe, humming,
bringing poems.

I still whisper Thank you 
after writing one down.

::

Jennifer Bullis is the author of Impossible Lessons (MoonPath Press) and of poems and essays appearing in Cave Wall, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, RHINO Poetry, Terrain.org, and Water~Stone Review. She is an Artsmith Residency Fellow, recipient of honorable mention for the Gulf Coast Prize, and finalist for the Brittingham & Pollak and the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prizes. She holds a PhD from University of California-Davis and lives in Bellingham, Washington, where she writes about long-distance foot travel, horse-keeping, motherhood, deforestation, and women in the courtroom.

Image: Dei R.

ID: orange and white daffodils.