Ancestress

girl—such a small someone
sits as she’s told    while I

[at her age] kept my foot
in the door    comma-hooked

& ready    my aversion
to stillness    a curse

or so they said & taught me
to tame my hands

for thin work.
                            I window-sat

for lace    tatted backwoods
French

             & secret-stitched
maps to far-off

coves.    now    too large
for that
             to Mère    to Grandmère
I add my other names

Superior    Victoria even Great
Bear. I leave her

all my depth
&  live in that girl’s

mirror tale-stopped.
waiting. 

A Franco-American poet, Jeri Theriault grew up in Waterville, Maine and graduated from Colby College, later earning degrees from USM (MS in Instructional Leadership) and Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA in Poetry). Her teaching career spanned thirty-four years, including seven years in Prague, six of them as English Department chair at the International School of Prague.