wildscape. literary journal

Believe You Me
by Lana Hechtman Ayers

the candidate says again.
I am certain whatever it indicates
is not a truth
anyone should have to face.
Probably not even truth at all.

Overhead clouds are gathering
gray taffeta veils and dark
woolen shawls
as if already mourning
for what is to befall us.

Though the rain when it falls
is clear as the beauty of
the monarch caterpillars
emerging full winged,
glistening as moonglow across grass.
It’s everything after the election I fear.

Too many children
like crushed acorns
will never grow into trees.
Swollen rivers of hate
overflowing all our shores
and melting glacier risen oceans
of famine swallowing the masses.

In another version of the world,
there must be leaders
who attend the kindness of sunrise
with tongues held and
palms up to receive
the words of their people
like water in the desert.

about the author // Lana Hechtman Ayers

Lana Hechtman Ayers (she/her) makes her home in an Oregon coastal town famous for its barking sea lions. As managing editor at three small presses, she has shepherded over a hundred poetry collections into print. She holds MFAs in Poetry and in Writing Popular Fiction, as well as degrees in Mathematics and Psychology. Her work appears in print and online journals such as Rattle, The MacGuffin, The London Reader, and Peregrine, as well as in her nine poetry collections. Visit her online at LanaAyers.com.

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