An A-line dress is best. An extra coat of mascara  
& two Ticktacks for breakfast. Coffee with skim 
milk, Special K cereal with skim milk if you’re feeling 
indulgent. Every good play needs a wet-eyed 

ingénue. The stage doesn’t have a red velvet curtain 
but there are plenty of places to hide. Behind 
every good woman is a Russian nesting doll set 
of the smaller & smaller women inside her— 

I have been examining my smallest woman. 
She’s lost her way amongst life’s towering props 
& has found herself stuffed in the sofa cushions 
alongside unidentifiable crumbs. Inside her 

there is no baby. No miniature her. Inside 
is a bird with a song so high-pitched some men 
can’t hear it. The bird is hungry, ravenous, 
& hates the taste of artificial sweetener.  

The song isn’t sweet or pretty. The bird  
is not a girl or a boy. The bird is a bird 
that lives beneath my layers of lip gloss  
& demands to be heard.  

Stevie Edwards holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of North Texas and an MFA in poetry from Cornell University. Stevie’s poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. They are a Lecturer at Clemson University and author of Quiet Armor (Northwestern University Press, 2023), Sadness Workshop (Button Poetry, 2018), Humanly (Small Doggies Press, 2015), and Good Grief (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). They are also the Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review. Originally a Michigander, they now live in South Carolina with their husband and a small herd of rescue pit bulls.