a poem by donna vorreyer
Evening at the Azalea
A black and white portrait of some 19th century scion
surveys the scene, the overhead lamps throwing halos
onto the ceiling, canonizing the narrow room.
We order—boulevardier, hibiscus tea. The taxidermied feathers
of a pheasant supervise behind the bar. On the mantle,
a blue cloisonne vase. Green mint leaves float in my glass.
A wall of tiles catches all manner of light—the flicker
of candles on tiny tables, the red authority of an exit sign,
sliver of orange peel in the bourbon like a small sun.
Mirrors reflect dresses flouncing past us en route to
the front door, the back patio, the bustle growing louder as
the bar fills, old patrons peeling away like the leaves
of an artichoke, the core of lingering guests its quiet heart.
A social clinking of glasses, a toast beneath a globe and a pair
of antlers, the dark wainscot panelled like secret doors.
Here in the buzzing dim, amidst the curated mashup
of animals, tchotchkes, and haphazard stacks of books,
the outside world disappears, the timeline slips.
The waitress’s septum may be pierced, but it’s Burt Lancaster
in black and white on the bar’s one screen. Past and present
colliding. Like memory. Like grief that never loosens its grip.
Donna Vorreyer is the author of four full-length poetry collections: Unrivered ( 2025), To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Harpur Palate, Baltimore Review, Salamander, and many other journals. Donna lives in the western suburbs of Chicago and runs the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey. She is the co-founder/co-editor of Asterales: A Journal of Arts & Letters.