the girls (after rilke’s ‘the boy’
we are girls
our wild mares do not rush like rain
towards the endings of our lines
squares don’t make way
and no roads bend towards us at strange angles
we are girls
houses refuse to take the knee behind us
the black solitude we race across is never
cleared by screaming, glinting trumpets
our unprotected golden heads may gleam uneasily
but our torches do not flutter in the wind of our great hunt
like undone braids
we are girls
all we wish for is to pass the night unscathed
feral tale
the most beautiful sight
I have ever seen is
the rage of one woman
avalanching into
the rage of ten
thousand more
I want to be saved by
the fury of women
I want to dangle my long woven hair
from the towering rage of women
I want the whole hog
golden carriage and steed
I want to wear my most elaborate
dress to the dance
with the bravery of women
and when I lose any glass slippery
part of myself I want to lose it
to the sisterhood of women
I want the whole world to
watch as I marry
the fury of women
and when death do
us part I want my bones
to lie alongside the ferocious
beauty of women
unbroken ever after
busy night
tonight I shall place a moon
in every little boy’s mind
and let me not forget the knife
because tonight I am going to have to carve
a flower into every little boy’s mind
so that the flower can drop
a seed down every little boy’s mind
and ripen into a fruit
that makes whoever tastes it
disappear
and reappear on top
of my heap of mysteries
yes tonight I must do all I can to pull
the riddle wool over every little boy’s eyes
so that no matter against which of them
I’ll one day try to break myself
I will already have crafted
a softer landing
Laura Theias’ work appears in Poetry, Oxford Poetry, The Caterpillar, Magma, Rattle, Aesthetica, iamb, etc. Her Elgin-Award-nominated debut how to extricate yourself (2020), an Oxford Poetry Library Book-of-the- Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things (2023) received the Live Canon Collection Prize and 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. Her new collection Introduction to Cloud Care and her children’s debut Poems from a Witch’s Pocket are both forthcoming in 2025.
