Debra Wierenga

Your pansies died again today. All June I’ve watched them scorch and fall by noon, their faces folding down to tissue-paper triangles. I bring them back with water, words, a pinch, but they are sick to death of resurrection. You planted them last fall, these “Chillers” guaranteed to come again in spring. They returned in April—you did not. You who said pick all you want, it just makes more! one day in 1963, and I, a daughter raised on love and miracles, believed it.