This City by Eugenia Leigh

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 10, 2017   This City   Eugenia Leigh

could use more seraphs. Anything with wings, really—   a falcon, a swallowtail. Ravenous for marvels, I slit open a chrysalis. Inside, no caterpillar mid-morph. Only its ghost in a horror of cells. I pinch the luminous mash of imaginal discs and shudder, imagining the mechanics of disintegration. The wormy larva—whole, then whorled. A wonder it did not die. Even now, smeared against my skin, it beams   like the angel in the tomb prepared to proclaim a rising.            Copyright © 2017 Eugenia Leigh. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I've lately turned to the natural world for instructions on how to survive, and the mystery of the chrysalis tells us that to transform into a new being, the larva must first submit to a period akin to death. This should alarm me, but instead, it gives me much-needed hope that our individual and collective seasons of pain and death will ultimately lead to seasons of resurrection and glory." —Eugenia Leigh   Eugenia Leigh is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014). She lives in Brooklyn, New York.       Poetry by Leigh   Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014) "Ars Poetica (cocoons)" by Dana Levin "Wild Silk" by Brian Russell "Maroon Canoe" by Oni Buchanan Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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