WONDER
even amidst
the fragments
of the life
you once expected
to live but are now
pulling off of objects
in your home
like flecks of a deer
sprayed across
the front bumper
of your car
wonder can hit
you in the face
like a snowball
and tho it stings
like a nest of ants
and tho it is soft
like a pound of
rotting leaves
and tho never
again will you
hold me in your
great painful
arms is this not
better than the life
we had before
devastation
opened our lives
like boxes
layers within layers
unfurling into the broken
mess that we find
scattered at the end
of every holiday
is this not
what we were planning
from the start
Rachel Shopper is the associate poetry editor at Orison Books, a non-profit literary press focused on the life of the spirit. Her work has appeared in The Asheville Poetry Review and Armchair/Shotgun. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Wesleyan University, and currently studies at the Wilderness Awareness School.