by Anne Perry
A quiet thing with teeth
i wake laughing:
their curse didn’t work,
the black crow still perches on my windowsill;
he brings me teeth.
in my garden:
flower after flower,
bearing names of women they couldn’t control;
lilith. medusa. me.
in my kitchen:
a cauldron is boiling – sultry,
like the lust for life that’s simmering in my marrow;
remorseless, fearless.
they called us names,
they cursed us,
they burned us
for feeling bliss without permission.
still:
underneath my ribs – somewhere,
there is a quiet thing with teeth,
laughing.
Vanessa Rose is a bilingual writer based in Germany with deep U.S. American roots. Her poetry navigates themes of embodiment, survival, and transformation, often blending experimental forms with feminist perspectives. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary magazines, and she writes toward reclamation and resilience, weaving language as a site of fracture, healing, and renewal. Instagram: @vanessarose_poetry.
Anne Perry, a former psychotherapist, brings 13 years of exploring the human condition to her emerging art and literary career. Now a photographer and writer of journalistic articles, fiction, and creative non-fiction, she focuses on the eerie and ethereal, human interest stories, true crime, crime fiction, and vintage true crime, with a particular interest in historical cases from the last century. Anne holds a B.A. in English, an M.A. in Communications, both from the State University of New York, and an MSW from Adelphi University. She lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina with her two cats.