Tori Grant Welhouse

CONTACT:
2967 School Lane
Suamico, WI 54313
Email. torigrantwelhouse@gmail.com
Website: torigrantwelhouse.com

BIO:
Tori is a poet-writer, living on a small, still pond just outside Green Bay in Wisconsin. She received her MFA from Antioch International in London. She is an active volunteer with WFOP, serving as Regional Vice President in the Northeast and coordinating the poetry reading series Poetry at Large in partnership with Lion’s Mouth Bookstore. She also manages the WFOP website and co-collaborates on Bramble, the literary magazine.

PUBLICATIONS:
Vaginas Need Air, winner Etching Press’s 2020 chapbook contest
Stashed: A Primer in Lunch Poems, 2019
The Fergus, winner of Skyrocket Press’s 2019 novel-writing contest
Canned, Finishing Line Press, 2014

Poetry

Theory of Cake

You are an occasion.
Cake, in fact.
All your ingredients—
flour, sugar,

the look in your eyes—
measured parts
of a sucrose destiny.
You have memorized

yourself: finding fate
in the small spaces,
blending eggs, milk,
the air around your edges,

pouring the light-haired
batter: a mix of heat, poise, 
s o d i u m   b i c a r b o n a t e.
You froth an alchemy

that swells, gilding
aroma, deep-seated
as hipbones. Your
surface splits joy.

There’s a sheen to you,
made for buttercream;
the knack of hiding crust
with long-leg frosting.

You cube womanhood,
serving yourself up
with a party napkin—
thumbing the crumbs.

Originally published in The Greensboro Review


Tickle Back

Mother swirls my naked back like skywriting, with the ends of her fingers, twirling, teasing me to sleep. I'm aware of the fabric of my pajama top rolled at the back of my neck, the heavy weight of lying flat on my stomach, arms at my sides, slight dip of the mattress under her hip, short bursts of breath as she whorls the expanse of my back, runnel of spine, wings of my shoulder blades.

I'm aware of night sounds through the screen, wind rushing the trees, dogs barking, car horns bleating. The wider universe, thickness of evening on the low horizon, clouds like clotted cream, heavy with moisture and marvel, stars charged with points of light, snagging my dream eyes.

Andromeda on my back. Cassiopeia. Virgo. Mother conjures a constellation on my skin, configuration of feelings, night-wishing.

From Vaginas Need Air, published by Etchings press