Do You Really Think I Look Like An Old Crone? by Laura Theis

Do You Really Think I Look Like An Old Crone?

I guess that’s what I must be, because I could

not walk across a graveyard

without being assailed by old dead friends

wanting to tell me their latest gossip.

Death constantly wants to meet up with me

to have “a serious talk”.

This doesn’t mean I want anyone to be able to guess

my exact age. I dye

what’s left of my hair and hide

my wrinkled hands in gloves.

But listen, of course I’d rather be old than

a ghost. I’ll happily take all the crow’s feet and ailments.

The slow pace. The armchair. The creaking.

The cake. The cake.

I will try to wear the name of crone

more proudly, like a crown. If anyone asks me why

I stopped being young and easy on the eye,

I’ll simply say: because I could.

Laura Theis writes in her second language. Her work appears in Poetry, Oxford Poetry, Magma, Rattle, Berlin Lit, etc. Accolades include the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, AM Heath Prize, Mogford Prize, and a Forward Prize nomination. Her debut how to extricate yourself, an Oxford Poetry Library Book-of-the-Month, was nominated for the Elgin Award and won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things received the Live Canon Collection Prize, and the Arthur Welton Award from the Society of Authors. Her latest publications are Introduction To Cloud Care (Broken Sleep Books) and her forthcoming children’s debut Poems From A Witch’s Pocket (Emma Press).