Who's Going to Love the Dying Girl?

WHO'S GOING TO LOVE THE DYING GIRL? by Bree Rolfe is a revolutionary debut poetry collection touching on society, loss, illness, and learning to grasp with things that cannot be changed. Rolfe executes verse with precision and fierceness:

Desert Tarot

and this is where

people come

to forget

their mothers

we envy darkness

noble, devilish

in its necessity

leaves like tap

dancers, skittered

across stone slabs

landed at the feet

of strange cacti

we are blind

powerless

in this blaze

your grace failed

when you needed

to bury a memory

in a shallow

grave in West Texas

we are burnt

limitless

in our catharsis

you delved too far

reoriented yourself

beneath too much sky

saw everything

it contained

a cup held

by a hand

that reached

from heavens

and stretched

warnings

in the offing

we are not

the salamander

who can pass through

fire unscathed

but each cloud

contained wings

and you intend

to wear a crown

of your haunted

thoughts

Bree Rolfe lives in Austin, TX where she teaches writing and literature to the mostly reluctant, but always loveable, teenagers at James Bowie High School. Her work has appeared in Saul Williams' poetry anthology Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, the Barefoot Muse Anthology Forgetting Home: Poems About Alzheimer's, the Redpaint Hill Anthology Mother is a Verb, and 5AM Magazine. She holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Bennington College.