Elizabeth Theriot

Girl Fool

I am at zero--
            hollowed out cavity            waiting            toothless mouth
Gown dried roses
from obligatory bouquets             I shed:
dead flowers,                                             rub:
face with fresh petals
                                                             avoid:
remembering smell

I am crossed-off grocery list--
            bad at                         waiting. I walk
street, backyard, gather pebbles/feathers/pine
needles, sew           their faces into dolls
            they question-animate-resent
 
Now my sleeves jagged, windfull,
propel me foot over hand up
my thorny tower, I     slowly                        kiss
my sleeping brow
 
I diadem I enter I the vines
 
No more cliff edge grasping             disembodied hands
                        I pluck
white rose
from the hot belly
of a crudely sketched sun




--
Elizabeth Theriot grew up in Louisiana and earned her undergraduate degree from University of New Orleans. She currently lives in Tuscaloosa, where she is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. Elizabeth works with the Black Warrior Review as Nonfiction Editor and with the program as Assistant to the Director. Her publications can be found online in Tinderbox, Requited, Pretty Owl, and Alyss; forthcoming in OCCULUM, Rogue Agent, and Crab Fat Magazine; and in print in The Mississippi Review.