Poetry Magazine
Mockingbird
No other song
or swoop (part
quiver, part swivel and
plash) with
tour de force
stray the course note
liquefactions
(its new,
bawdy air an
aria hangs in) en-
thralls,
trills, loops, soars,
startles, out-warbles,
out-brawns, more
juicily,
lifts up
the dawn, outlaws from
sackcloth, the cool
sloth of bed sheets,
from pillows
and silks
and blue-quilted, feminine
bolsters, fusses
of coverlets;
nips as the switch
of a juvenile willow, fuzz
of a nettle, to
window and window
and window and ever
toward egress, to
flurry, pollen
and petal shed,
to wet street
and wet pavement,
all sentiment intemperate,
all sentience
ephemeral.
Source: Poetry (November 2012).
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 . . .
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Living, Time & Brevity, Nature, Animals
POET’S REGION U.S., Mid-Atlantic
Poetic Terms Free Verse
If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.
Poem of the Day: O, She Says
Your results will be limited to content that appeared in Poetry magazine.
