This is a printable, digital print of the original poem "Grandma Iris" and artwork from my poetry book, Flower Girls (Feminist Poems and Artwork).  Poem and art by Alicia Bayer, artwork digitally drawn.

Flower Girls is a collection of forty poems and art pieces that use flowers as analogies for women and women's experiences. The poems use a range of flowers to explore topics such as motherhood, sexual assault, loneliness, LGBTQ issues, menopause, loneliness and youth. The seven artists who contributed to the book each interpreted the poems with their own personal artwork, using a range of media including watercolor, pen, pencil, digital design and even wild mushroom ink. This art piece was my own, digitally drawn with a mouse.

Grandma Iris

She had words like broadswords,
So jagged and unbending
For someone who carried
Such delicate beauty.
All my life she took turns
Stabbing and forgiving me. 

Flower Girls was funded in part with a grant from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council made possible by the voters of Minnesota, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.