We circled the sisters and their beds and their chapel
circled with cherry blossoms damp on our shoes in the
spring circled hedged enclaves with statues of pollen-laced
Mary circled while Rex the beagle stalked his dandelion
kingdom circled through the summer while my mother and
I both got bigger circled while crickets and fireflies
competed for attention circled in the fall with one more
sister in tow while the rosary beads threaded through nunly
hands circled while leaves descended on us quiet crowns
drying from red to brown covering the halos circled the
hedges recoiling from the statues and the lawnmower
locked somewhere unseen circled the sisters their
carpentry and their carpenter while our numbers fell back
by one and I was the only one growing
Jessica Beyer is a writer and educator from Baltimore, Maryland. Her poems have been published in MiPOesias, The Adroit Journal, decomP, TIMBER, Split Rock Review, and other journals and anthologies. She has a MFA in Poetry from New York University and a BA in English and Creative Writing from Emory University. She is looking for a publisher for her first poetry collection Questions for a Damaged Goddess and working on a second collection and a novel. When not writing or working, Jessica can be found waterskiing, scuba diving, and giving in to wanderlust whenever possible. She most recently traveled to New Zealand, Australia, and Thailand, and is now one (Antarctica) away from getting continent bingo. You can find her at jessicabeyer.com and on Twitter @JessicaHBeyer.