Being Women: Poetry and Imagery

The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Maddie McGarvey and Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Everyone In Me Is A Bird

Melissa Studdard

Mind was a prison, ruby lined
in its lipstick noir—everything woman
I was expected to be, trapped between
papered walls. What they said to do, I did not
but only levitated at the burning,

the body a water in which I drowned, the life
a windshield dirty with love. What they
said to think, I thought not but instead made
my mind into a birdcage with wings