At night after her stinging work
is done she dips a stiff quill in
her own blood & writes
brother brother brother
brother brother brother
brother.
But in every capacity
those wild swans are not
her brothers.
In every capacity she
is the mother swollen
with the moon & roped
inside houses of waxy furniture
while those guys get to sail
through the frigid curtains of the sky.
In every capacity
she should be writing in
black letters BABY BABY
BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY.
Stella Brice
Stella Brice graduated from Rice University & has worked, variously, as housecleaner, tarot reader & performance artist. Her poems have been published in many journals & anthologies including Southern Poetry Review, Fine Madness, Word Riot, Right Hand Pointing, Clean Sheets, The Weight of Addition, Improbable Worlds, Women. Period., & No, Achilles. She is a Pushcart nominee; a winner of the John Z. Bennet Prize; & is the author of three collections of poetry—the latest forth-coming from Purple Flag Press (Chicago) is called Urged (or, How Sex & Death Lift Up My Granny). Stella lives with her family in a 107 year old house in Houston.
Artwork: Catrin Welz-Stein, “Odette (Swan Lake)”
Website: http://catrinwelzstein.blogspot.com/
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 