Leda in the Suburbs, and: The Exile

Leda in the Suburbs · Elizabeth Libbey Arms folded at the window, she regards the garden settled inside its frame like a pastoral painting. Everything grows toward her. And there alone (the husband not home, the children not born), she mistakes herself for the sun. The flat mask of dusk deepens her breathing, there is something more to tonight's coming. The meaning is not clear, yet she feels significant as a star. She wants to drift like evening itself. There by the back fence (does she imagine it?) she stands waiting. Night, like some black swan, gathers at her shoulders, forces her down and open like any ripe thing. 16 ¦ The Missouri Review The Exile · Elizabeth Libbey And even from here I can hear— Isn't this a miracle!— The sounds of my own voice! —A Poem Without a Hero -Anna Akhmatova I am a photograph of myself on the platform, dressed sensibly as if I really mean to take the train. Sparrows settle beside me not knowing I'm here, I stand so motionless. How easily I might open my fist, let crumbs of nothing sprinkle to the rumpled snow. How easily fooled, like these sparrows, I might be. But I know the light ready to crack trying to hold things up. Sparrows rise heavily crackling their iced wings, while I stand frozen without regret, believing in pure soft falling, the waiting, this vast land shed of people. If I move, I leave my last best strength behind. Sometimes I think I've leapt to the train, travelled out past everything. In the window, my face clears itself of the gray uniform, doubt. I concentrate, don't let the train go slower than my hurtling shoulders. There's no train, my heart. I stand here, wrapped about you, living ice. Time may put this exile to sleep and so I woo sleep, even as I taste air. I stand, and here the sparrows gathering along my arms. I don't breathe for fear the rising, the fall of my breasts will give me away. The Missouri Review · 17 ...