Poetry Magazine
Frostbite
Less a nip than gnaw,
the way a goat,
tethered, will ruminate
a rope; the way
each in extremis tip
of ear and nose
unbuds, or snail-
like toe, curled
dreamily, lets
go too fat a foot,
cinching filament
and tendril, pinch
by stony pinch
until the pulse exhausts
and flickers down
to drowse and numb,
the sleep so close,
so old, so mild
inside the placid
scald
and hissing of the snow.
Source: Poetry (December 2009).
Biography
Poet Hailey Leithauser was born in Baltimore and raised in Maryland and Central Florida. Over the years Leithauser has worked as a salad chef, real estate office manager, gourmet food salesperson, freelance copy editor, phone surveyor, bookstore clerk, fact checker, and, most recently, senior reference librarian at the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.
Returning to writing after a break of several decades, her work . . .
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POET’S REGION U.S., Mid-Atlantic
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