Leda, After the Swan by Carl Phillips

Leda, After the Swan
Carl Phillips

Perhaps,
in the exaggerated grace
of his weight
settling,

the wings
raised, held in
strike-or-embrace
position,

I recognized
something more
than swan, I can’t say.

There was just
this barely defined
shoulder, whose feathers
came away in my hands,

and the bit of world
left beyond it, coming down

to the heat-crippled field,

ravens the precise color of
sorrow in good light, neither
black nor blue, like fallen
stitches upon it,

and the hour forever,
it seemed, half-stepping
its way elsewhere—

then
everything, I
remember, began
happening more quickly.

MARGINALIA

You love to write about the body, says my friend. You might like to give nature a try. I’m afraid I’m not good at it, dear. There’s just something so…otherworldly about it that I’m afraid to touch.