I believe in
angels on pinheads,
pot-bellied pigs,
long narrow clouds,
brown ants that milk cows in the trees.
In Christopher Robin,
silk skirts, and gray wooly mammoths.
I believe in extinction, annihilation, mutilation,
commutation; viruses, vaccines, VR-
a deep state built on the dust of old bones.
I believe in Santa Claus,
Easter, “Gesundheit” when you sneeze,
little mud pies,
large wasps and hard fought
fights with my squeeze.
I believe in most everything –
a bit, but not much.
For too much belief,
you certainly see, is a most
perilous, nefarious disease.
~~
Ursula Shepherd lives in Ashland, Oregon. She spent her professional life as a professor of ecology and biogeography, studying such wondrous places as coral reefs, deserts, and mammal communities across North America. She recently returned to writing poetry. Her poetry has appeared in, among others, Passionfruit, Big Wing Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Unbroken, Boats against the Current, Grim and Gilded, Ekphrastic Review, and The Orchards.
