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Ars Poetica with Tin of Fish
by Eugenia Leigh

They bring you four loaves and a tin of fish,
then expect you to respond


like a god. You fail

to remember the lyrics to the miracle.
Look at them

strung out on hot desire, mauled

with the chase of new heavens.
You marvel


how humans this beautiful can believe
they are this battered,

and you wish to scream out

their names,
name by name,


tell them they were knit
in their dead mothers’ wombs, tell them
they were astonishingly made.


But who are you

to say they are worth more
than the cold-blooded vertebrates
stinking up that tin?



Eugenia Leigh is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books), the winner of the 2015 Debut-litzer Prize in Poetry. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including Indiana Review, The Collagist, North American Review, and the Best New Poets 2010 anthology. The recipient of fellowships and awards from Poets & Writers Magazine, Kundiman, The Frost Place, Rattle, and the Asian American Literary Review, Eugenia received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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Issue 18: Summer 2016
ISSN 2157-8079
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