Wren Tuatha’s poetry has appeared in The Cafe Review, Canary, Baltimore Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Lavender Review, and others. She’s editor at Pitkin Review and Califragile, journal of climate change and social justice. Her first collection is Thistle and Brilliant (Finishing Line Press). Wren is followed around the Camp Fire burn zone by a goat named Simile.
A Wolf Girl Enters the World
A wolf girl enters the world
through a slice in the air
that catches eyes all around.
Is her name ordinary, Maria,
or pedestaled, Dulcinea?
The air in the village square
tells the story of the pie
she carries. Younger wolf sister
stays close, dropping mental
breadcrumbs through
the forest of eyes.
To be a wolf girl and to be
a girl are redundant. Everyone
is entitled to look at will,
on the sly or not.
At court, brocade
flowers on her gown
fit in, but she will always
be queer.
Her Italian language is
baroque with syllables,
civilized. She has written
a poem. It feels natural
to choose the attention
of others.
She will recite her poem
now.
First published in Danse Macabre.
Sally Ashton is a poet, writer, teacher, and editor-in-chief of DMQ Review, an online journal featuring poetry and art. She is the author of three poetry collections, and a fourth book, The Behaviour of Clocks, just released in 2019. Honors include a fellowship from Arts Council Silicon Valley, the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo Arts Center, and she served as the second Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, 2011-2013. More info can be found at sallyashton.com
GRATITUDE
The woman woke from her nap. A breeze tossed through the greeny branches overhead. Some bird wheedled in a way that matched the motion of the wind, the leaves. A stem of grass teased her bare ankle. The dry air buzzed. In one direction vineyard unfurled, rising, falling with the hills. In the other the steeple and tiled roofs of some small town stood almost asleep. She didn’t want to move either. It was good that dinosaurs were extinct. They would have ruined everything.
forthcoming in A Cast-iron Aeoroplane that Actually Flies: Commentaries from 80 American Poets on their Prose Poems (MadHat Press).
