…I shan’t live very long…I burn myself up,
always thinking, thinking, thinking.
—Theda Bara, American silent film star
Reclining on my side, face masked, I ride
in the rear seat. Raise the back of my hand
to feel if I have a fever. Yesterday, I boiled!
This girl’s body heat turned high to kill germs.
In the rear seat of the car, I raise the back of my hand.
My muscles still ache. Or do they? I imagine
my body heat turned high. I’m a killer. The same girl
Mother called Theda for my overactive imagination.
My muscles still ache. Or do they? I imagine
myself, Theda, my silks draped across the loveseat.
Theda, Mother said, you & your overactive imagination!
A silent film star, rehearsing my inner monologue:
Theda, drape your silks across the loveseat.
Satins, laces, and furs, not even a murmur
as I rehearse my inner monologue. A silent film star,
the flamboyant actress expert at turning
even a murmur into satins, laces, and furs.
Fitting that I should swallow this blackbird,
an expert actress who turns
words to wings trapped inside the throat.
Fitting that I should swallow a blackbird
on this Christmas trip home, dragging my illness,
trapped in my throat. Words wing inside.
I bat back tears as the Old Fear returns
on this Christmas trip home. The illness I bring:
will it kill my mother? Strip away my family’s love?
The Old Fear returns. I bat back tears.
Even in my middle-aged years, Theda reappears.
Ellen Austin-Li’s 2025 collection, Incidental Pollen, is the runner-up to Madville Publishing’s Arthur Smith Poetry Prize. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks Firefly and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic. Ellen is a 2026 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award recipient. Sundress Academy for the Arts supported her with a 2024 residency. Ellen is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net-nominated poet whose work appears in many places, including SWIMM, Salamander, The Maine Review, Sheila-na-Gig, and ONE ART. Ellen holds an MFA in Poetry from the Solstice Program. She curates Poetry at Artifact in Cincinnati, where she lives.
