by Elizabeth Theriot

for SB

This is the most you’ve ever been

a child. Once there was sand,

thick saltwater paste on legs

capable of anything; then, later

your body inside a lantern

waiting for claps of resurrection—

what happens is yellow, an armful

of swords pressed into your embrace

but no blood, only sprinting, blades

like chopsticks then sheathed

in your throat & this is also hunger

a goblet of dirt & flowers.

But think of that beach again. You know the one,

you’ve been there so many times. Think

of pomegranates instead of rocks & a sea monster

(any kind you’d like) who will love you

better than a lighthouse, love your toes

resting in its muddy grey sand

as the water breathes with endless indecision

the in & out of tongue

(after all just another muscle)

I would strip every branch clean, hands

wrapped like a hilt, buzzed fingers learning

the small fur of a bee, just asking for sting,

honey sugared between bricks.

Are you in the snow right now, this very second?

Somewhere there’s a city of seals &

somewhere I am slipping inside

another’s heavy rubber skin, changing

my feet, swallowing gulps of well-water

that taste like you. Like my eyes

weighed down with pennies

from the year I was born, & a year

that hasn’t happened yet.

Elizabeth Theriot

Elizabeth Theriot is a queer Southern writer with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. She earned her MFA from The University of Alabama and is writing a memoir about disability and desire. She is a Zoeglossia Fellow and a Fellow with the teaching nonprofit Desert Island Supply Company. You can find her work in Yemassee, Barely South Review, Winter Tangerine, Ghost Proposal, Vagabond City, A VELVET GIANT, Tinderbox, and others. She lives in Birmingham, AL. elizabeth-theriot.com