GIRLS
Elisabeth Blair

We wake up in the mornings and we aren't in our beds.

We pull our nightshirts down over our knees,
walk crouched, sleeves and necklines all stretched out.

We are giraffes.
We are hundreds of animals moving together across plains.
Maybe we twirl in our houses,
go from room to room in beautiful ways.

Maybe we are lying about that.

We are sorry.
We should not have waited this long–
now it smells bad, needs to be sprayed down.

“Go, come, move," they tell us,
"evolve this direction now,
without question.”

So we do,
pounding on the surfaces.

In the conference rooms they meet
about what to do with us.

We lie down in roads, in the dark.

We have an idea of what our bodies
would look like, strewn.

They might like us then.
They might like us if we risk our bodies for them.

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Elisabeth Blair is a feminist, poet, interdisciplinary artist, and podcaster. Her poetry is forthcoming in Feminist Studies, cream city review, and S/tick. Her chapbook, We He She/It, is available through Dancing Girl Press. www.elisabethblair.net