Insect

By Annie Finch b. 1956 Annie Finch

That hour-glass-backed,

orchard-legged,

heavy-headed will,

paper-folded,

wedge-contorted,

savage—dense to kill—

pulls back on backward-moving,

arching

high legs still,

lowered through a deep, knees-reaching,

feathered down

green will,

antenna-honest,

thread-descending,

carpeted as if with skill,

a focus-changing,

sober-reaching,

tracing, killing will.

Reprinted with permission of the author and Story Line Press.

Source: Eve (Story Line Press, 1997)

Biography

Annie Finch is the author or editor of fifteen books of poetry, translation, and criticism, including the trilogy of poetry collections Eve (1997), Calendars (2003), and Spells, and the long poems The Encyclopedia of Scotland (2002) and Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams (2009). Calendars was shortlisted for the Foreword Poetry Book of the Year Award, and Eve reissued in the Carnegie Mellon Classic . . .

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