SOFT AGAINST THE STONE
….
She is sitting on a rock like some goddess,
foot curled up in comfortability.
Her softness against the stone like gray
morning light against deep, red earth.
She doesn’t wonder. What’s right
in front of her tells her everything
she needs to know. Her brow is cool,
relaxed. Eyes trained ahead and only
ahead at the world. She is steady
and sure, just as the mountains
know substantial winds but withstand
them. Just as the crocuses in this white
spring open their mouths at every
afternoon’s warmth like clockwork,
knowing what they know.
….
This poem is from the chapbook
Wild Like a Woman by Thalia Geiger (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/wild-like-a-woman-by-thalia-geiger/
Wild Like a Woman is an extensive meditation on femininity, born as a reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Like grief, this collection cycles through various emotional stages. Featuring moments of loss and lamentation to rage and defiance, the focus subsequently shifts to the celebration of feminine resilience. From girlhood to womanhood and back again, Wild Like a Woman acknowledges every little joy in between that makes womanhood remarkably bittersweet.
Thalia Geiger is a poet and fiction writer born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she lives and works as a publishing associate and poetry editor. Her poems have appeared in New York Quarterly, Allegory Ridge, Santa Ana River Review, and her fiction has appeared in Coffin Bell, and Grim & Gilded.
The Paddock Review 