ode to an adolescent niece

Written By Elizabeth Galoozis

you’re blazing

hot pink-orange,

an angry sunrise

through wildfire smoke,

a highlighter 

obliterating words

you’re expected

to remember. 

your seatbelt seizes you

the more you strain.

your center is tinder

and your shell cuts.

charisma and menace.

hurricane and eye.

Elizabeth Galoozis’s debut full-length collection, Law of the Letter (2025), won the Hillary Gravendyk Prize from the Inlandia Institute. Her poems have appeared in Air/Light, Pidgeonholes, RHINO, Witness, Sinister Wisdom, and elsewhere. She serves as a reader for The Maine Review and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and for Best of the Net.  She works as a librarian and lives in Southern California. Elizabeth can be found on Instagram and Blue Sky at @thisamericanliz, and at her website https://elizabethgaloozis.com/. 

Elizabeth Galoozis

Elizabeth Galoozis’s debut full-length collection, Law of the Letter (2025), won the Hillary Gravendyk Prize from the Inlandia Institute. Her poems have appeared in Air/Light, Pidgeonholes, RHINO, Witness, Sinister Wisdom, and elsewhere. She serves as a reader for The Maine Review and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and for Best of the Net.  She works as a librarian and lives in Southern California. Elizabeth can be found on Instagram and Blue Sky at @thisamericanliz, and at her website https://elizabethgaloozis.com/. 

https://elizabethgaloozis.com/
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