I’ve made the pitcher on my table human again.
Her elegant white neck, belly slightly bloated
with flowers. Candles my mother stole stand
in borrowed silver candlesticks, and I can’t understand
why one has burnt faster than the other.
If I bought these sleek white chairs the same day,
why is one splay-legged, and treacherous?
There are too many dollhouses for a house with no
children. Not enough water in the vase of petulant
blooms. Grass has grown through the bedroom
wall, following the tunnel of wires. If nature can
use cable cords as subways for new growth, then
I’ll be still til I am overgrown, nail polish chipped
like an old car left in the sun. My hair falling out like
seeds of the dandelion, scatter and thrive.
Avra Elliott /
March 7, 2018
Terrarium
About The Author
Avra Elliott
Avra Elliott is a writer and toymaker from New Mexico. A graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, Elliott’s fiction has been published in Sweet Tree Review, Shadowgraph Quarterly, and Noctua Review. Her poetry has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Tinderbox, Tupelo Quarterly, Jam Tarts, llanot Review, Red Paint Hill, Birds Piled Loosely, Indianapolis Review, and Barrow Street.
In processing traumas or passing the time, fairy tales have been an ever present element in my life since childhood. I was raised believing fairies lived in our trees, cats could outsmart ogres, and wolves hid in grandparents’ clothes. Fairy tales offer a layer to the worlds I create where the absurd and fantastic are more real than the mundane.
