Poetry by Jillian Stacia

     Sarah Horrigan CC




Daughter

I would give you the world, but there are holes
at the knees. There are grass stains and so many rips

in the seams. I would give you my wisdom, but I doubt
it would hold. Look, it’s already starting to rust

at the edges. I saved you these heirlooms, but the glass
is cloudy and a little bit cracked. More corset than comfort,

more performance than poem. Daughter,
life is so often a puckered lip, a sour bite.

Daughter, it isn’t always delicious — but oh,
my darling, sometimes it is.

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Moon Child

At night I take my daughter out to scream at the stars. 
We chase wart-covered toads across the garden.
Trample flowers with our bare feet.
Trip over unruly roots. 
Bloody our palms and scrape up our knees.
We hunt with the horn-rimmed owls, 
catch field mice with our talon claws.
Smear mud across our cheeks, 
tip back our throats 
and howl at the midnight moon, 
stare down wolves with our yellow coyote eyes.
This is the secret of the stars,
I whisper into the nest of her hair.
This is the knowledge of the night:
To be a woman is to be a wild, feral thing -
to be a woman is to come alive in the dark.

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Jillian wants to live in a world where the coffee is bottomless and the sweatpants are mandatory. She spends her days crafting creative copy for clients in Children's Programming. Her poetry and creative nonfiction essays have been featured in Querencia Press, Plentitude Journal, Remington Review, Coffee & Crumbs, and Voicemail Poems. When she's not writing, Jillian can be found snuggling with her two adorable children and cheering on the Baltimore Ravens.
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