"Agatha" by Dorothea Lasky

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 2, 2018   Agatha   Dorothea Lasky

They are not real She said from the cellar And slowly unveiled The flat scope Lizards and their eggs That I hang around the neck You will break your legs He warned me And I believed him Ruby edgings around The mushroom-colored stones And the man who told me The women Are like pictures in a book They are not real And so I believed him Despite all the years Finally free In the end of an era She held her breasts On a golden platter Despite the pain And blessings everywhere Eat she said And they ate They did              Copyright © 2018 Dorothea Lasky. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "'Agatha' is a poem I wrote while staring at paintings of St. Agatha. St. Agatha endured unspeakable violence but kept her faith in a holy power and the other world, in spite of the cruelty of this one. 'Agatha' is a poem from my new book, Milk, which is about the power of creativity and love." —Dorothea Lasky   Dorothea Lasky's most recent poetry collection is Milk, forthcoming on April 3 from Wave Books. She is an assistant professor at Columbia University in New York City. Poetry by Lasky   Milk (Wave Books, 2018) "Love Story" by Marilyn Chin "Reconstructing the Saints" by Chelsea Dingman "Our Lady of the Flood" by Alison Pelegrin April Guest Editor: Tracy K. Smith   Thanks to Tracy K. Smith, United States poet laureate and author of Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Smith and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! 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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