The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Self-Portrait with Thorns by Gail Goepfert

This selection, chosen by guest editor Amber Alexander, is from Self-Portrait with Thorns by Gail Goepfert, released by Glass Lyre Press in 2021.

I Confess I Am Two

                —A poem using titles of Kahlo's paintings

in the dream
my dream, I lie in bed—
bunked above me, a skeleton
		clutches
lavender blooms

me and my doll
a naked white-skinned baby
		propped up
		on the bed
we are such stiff witnesses

my scared scarred face
		hurdles
through a clearing
		on the head
of the wounded deer

I bleed in remembrance
		of the open wound
my spine:
		the broken column
my torso trussed

but my roots
		twine
the earth—

			living nature
		tree of hope keep firm

I am two women
		two Fridas
I am what the water gave me

Gail Goepfert is an ardent poet, photographer, and teacher. She’s an associate editor of RHINO Poetry and teaches classes online at National Louis University. She is the author of This Hard Business of Living (Seven Kitchens Press, 2021) and Self-Portrait with Thorns (Glass Lyre Press, 2021), as well as other chapbooks and full-length books. Recent poem publications appear in After Hours, The Examined Life Journal, Night Heron Barks, Inflectionist Review, and Rogue Agent. She lives, writes, and snaps photos in the Chicagoland area.

Amber Alexander, who publishes creative work as e. holloway, is a poet based in Ohio. They currently work in higher education and as an Assistant Editor for Best Of The Net within Sundress Publications. Alexander is a former Editorial Intern for Sundress Publications, former Editorial Board Member for Cornfield Review, and was a Sundress Academy for The Arts Writing Resident in 2023. Their work has been published by Cornfield Review and earned multiple awards during undergrad at The Ohio State University.