Two Poems by Donna Hilbert

The Phone

“There are two types of reactors,”
my grad-school-psych professor said,
“when hearing the phone, one says
yay who’s calling me! The other says
shit who’s bothering me.” But I say
there are three. The third is me.
I say, Who’s dead?

*

The Wait

I waken to your hand
holding mine,
you, on the floor by the bed,
the morning after I said
we are through.
Your tender vigil coaxed
the buds of love to sprout again
after the dormant season
when I had ceased belief
in anything but grief.

*

Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Threnody, from Moon Tide Press. Earlier books include Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. She is a monthly contributing writer to the on-line journal Verse-Virtual. Work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Braided Way, Chiron Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rattle, Zocalo Public Square, One Art, and numerous anthologies. Poems have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and on Lyric Life. She writes and leads private workshops in Southern California, where she makes her home, and during residencies at Write On Door County. Learn more at www.donnahilbert.com