by Laura E. Davis
| She pours their faces, porcelain legs and arms resting on every surface: kitchen counter, night stand, her belly. She sews cloth bodies. Assembles them outside her womb— these hundred virgin doll births.As she affixes the appendages, soft white torsos accept their shape, floppy body now an asterisk, a naked star. The doll maker is thrifty, sewing patchwork clothing from old sheets or her own worn-out dresses. Waits for her thick hair to grow long enough, lifts the sharp edge of sheers, collecting every strand. Her steady hand invents |
Laura E. Davis’ debut chapbook, Braiding the Storm, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (2012). Her poem “Widowing” won the 2011 Crab Creek Review Poetry Contest, judged by Dorianne Laux. Her poems and reviews are featured or forthcoming in Redactions, The Rumpus, A-Minor Magazine, Sweet Lit, Super Arrow, and qarrtsiluni, among others. A native of Pittsburgh, Davis is the founding editor of WeaveMagazine and currently teaches poetry writing, translation, and recitation in San Francisco, where she lives with her partner, Sal.
Causeway Lit 