by Laura Theis
this white four-poster once
was her laughter & the darkening
night sky once was her tongue
the orangery once was a little
tear she showed no one isn’t it
striking these shooting stars were
how she sneezed when
the dust came down the cashmere
I’m wearing once was her left foot
this Jasmine bush here used to be
the way she tilted her head
when not really listening those peacocks
once were her elbows the twin
dolls her headaches oh and I think
this stuffed swan was actually her heart
once but this whole country used to be
her heart come to think of it
all the cliffs & wild springs & lava fields
the unending summers the northern lights
jade flames against a black canvas
Laura Theis’ work appears in Poetry, Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, Magma, Oxford Poetry, Rattle, etc. Her Elgin Award-nominated debut “how to extricate yourself”, an Oxford Poetry Library Book of the Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. Her follow-up “A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things” won the Live Canon Collection Prize and received the Society of Authors’ Arthur Welton Award. Other accolades include the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, Poets & Players Prize, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, AM Heath Prize, and Mogford Prize.
Little Leaf Literary Journal 