Angela Veronica Wong, Elsa

ELSA IS NOT A GIRL SHE IS A GIRL

Elsa is not a girl she is a girl
fashioned from sticks and whale blubber, paper
tigers that with one poof fall away. Worldly
she passes through society like a ginger
cat stalking the moonlight. No one can see
who she isn’t. No one can read her at all.
There is something geometric about her. She
is made like macramé, one knot enthralled
by another. Remove all her plums and
she is nothing like temptation. Cut out
her lungs, veins spring like rubber bands,
the pleural cavity echoing like doubt.
Cut out her heart, that giant cherry pit
and let’s see what she does without it.

[previously published in Inter|rupture]

TONIGHT ELSE / IS SO CHARMING SHE / SMILES

You/ already know you/ are going to kiss/
Elsa so why/ won’t you why/ wait until
you/ are prettily positioned/ against
a doorway framed/ by the light and the still/
of the first/ date./ Tonight Elsa/ is so
charming she/ smiles the right/ smiles and plays/ with
her hair. You/ notice her hands her/ Hello
Kitty bandaid you/ notice the depth/
of her collarbone you/ smile all the/ right smiles.
She/ knows when you/ place your hand on her
back you are/ testing her she/ lets you she/ smiles
at your smile she/ places her hand over
your wrist slides her hand into your hand
she/ walks you to the dance floor/ she turns and

[previously published in Storm Cellar Quarterly]

ELSA ABSOLVES YOU OF ALL YOUR SINS

Elsa absolves you of all your sins, the
ones you committed against her and the
ones you didn’t but would’ve had you had
the chance. Men are not like plants. It’s not
like if you love them they will become
a fruit. This is modern day. Someone will
fall in love with someone else. In the
beginning Versailles held a menagerie
of rare birds—ostriches and
pelicans could be viewed from a balcony.
Soon there would be wild animals, tigers
and alligators and Elsa. After
all there is not yet such thing as privacy.
The orange trees blossom year-round.

[previously published by Poetry Society of America]

ELSA IS ON THE BRINK OF UTTER VIOLENCE

If you shove your fingers in her mouth she
might finally shut up. Or at least you
might finally get her off. For me,
there’s a forty-sixty chance that would do.
I’d say for most girls that’s true. Elsa
is on the brink of utter violence. She
is bored and unties everything—fat
ribbons on hats, window drapes, strings
around packages, strings around bodies,
strings, strings, strings. Her brain is like a video
game. Her brain is like orchid roots rotting
from overwatering. Her brain is real.
It’s all the deer on the grounds waiting
to be hunted. Can make a girl crazy.

[previously published in Tusculum Review and as a Flying Object Broadside]

THEN ELSA GAVE BIRTH LIKE THAT

First Elsa gave birth with a mask on her
face and a fashionable doctor urging
her to push, push. Then Elsa gave birth in
a room filled with tuberoses blooming
effusively to mask the smell of childbirth.
Then Elsa gave birth to a boy and a
girl and they were sent away with to
create history with five loaves of
peasant bread. Then Elsa gave birth like that
elephant in Bali who thought she had
lost her baby and kicked it and kicked it
because she thought it was dead. Then Elsa
gave birth to vines and tubers, wild curling
and dense knots with a spray of hair. Then Elsa

[previously published in Inter|rupture]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Angela Veronica Wong is the author of the full-length how to survive a hotel fire (Coconut Books) and the chapbook Dear Johnny, In Your Last Letter, a winner of the Poetry Society of America New York Fellowship. Her poetry has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry (with Amy Lawless) and Please Excuse This Poem. Her fiction has appeared in Denver Quarterly. She is on the internet at angelaveronicawong.com.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Elsa is a collection of sonnets about a fictional 18^th century Frenchdemimondaine/courtesan and mistress of Louis XV.