Elisabeth Harrahy

CONTACT:
Address: Oconomowoc, WI
Email: harrahye@uww.edu
Phone: 414-617-4346

BIO:
Elisabeth Harrahy’s poems have appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Zone 3, I-70 Review, Constellations, Blue Heron Review, Wisconsin People and Ideas, The Café Review, Passengers Journal, Ghost City Review, The Comstock Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Turtle Island Quarterly, Pinyon, Plainsongs, and elsewhere, and have been nominated for Best of the Net. Her poem, “Center of the Universe,” was awarded 2nd Place in the 2021 Jade Ring Writing Contest. She is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where she teaches courses in ecology and environmental toxicology and conducts research on the effects of contaminants on aquatic ecosystems. She lives in Oconomowoc with her husband and three daughters.

Poetry

Center of the Universe

We arrive at the gym where the strobe lights flash,
the subwoofer booms a thunderous bass, and a hundred
elementary school kids scream and chase, drawing
my six-year-old daughter to wrest free of my hand,
run into the crowd, and jump up to “Jump Around,”
leaving me in the fake fog. Surrounded by moms.
I sidle up along-side the only two I recognize, but they just go on
shouting about their vacation homes, SUVs, and their love
of yoga-pilates, their matching ponies bobbing cute.
I wish I had on my biker boots. I wish I had worn my leather.
I wish I had driven my muscle car with its big block engine
so my baby and I could peel our way out through a smoke-show
of our own making— but my little social butterfly
is doing the piggyback twirl surrounded by girls
in perfect French braids beneath a shiny silver ball.
I slink back against the wall until “Sweet Child O’ Mine”
stops playing and the DJ announces a hula hoop contest
for moms. My little girl hands me a glow-in-the-dark ring
and pulls me out to the middle, where I pause
until the music starts. And then I take that thing for a spin
around my grooving hips, around and around,
one foot out front like I am feeling my way
into the vast unknown, moving in time to “Stayin’ Alive”
as hoop after hoop falls, leaving none but the glow of the one
rotating around me like I am Saturn, and my daughter,
whose eyes are the only spotlight I need, is the sun.

Originally published in the 2021 Creative Wisconsin Anthology by the Wisconsin Writer’s Association as the 2nd Place winner in the 2021 Jade Ring Writing Contest

The Truth the Birds Know

Watched over by a mob of crows that fuss and call as old crones
the man and the woman stride through the forest on leaves tossed
by gnarled branches of ancient oaks. Leaves like rose petals guide
them to a meadow bright with sunlight and the red, ripe fruit of sumacs
that stand at attention as the two pass through to where the path ends
in a stony slope. The man and the woman descend, find themselves
on the edge of a musky moat, thick with calla lily and alluring
but poisonous nightshade. They pause to look at one another before
joining hands, leaping onto a rotting plank that draws them like a vein
past the stagnant pool, pungent with decay, toward the heart of the bog
and on their way, tufts of cotton from the tussock sedge fly in celebration 
and the white flowers of the leatherleaf lift their tiny heads. In the center
of the peatland, showy lady slippers wait beside a bed of sphagnum
that floats precarious over acidic water. Overcome by heat and hunger
the man and the woman undress before sinking into the velvet moss
that undulates in time as they move entwined among the carnivorous
plants sprouting ravenous, their mouths opening to bare pink throats
like pitcher plants seeking to be quenched, their sticky skin glistening
like sundews laid bare, needing to be nourished. The man and the woman
feed on each other in this secret place, secluded by a wall of tamaracks
while a cricket trills a serenade. And the man and the woman are satisfied—
they are fed. A pair of cranes flies overhead.

Originally pblished in Turtle Island Quarterly (2022, Issue 22)