"Leda's Dream" by Meryl Natchez

Leda’s Dream

All self-consciousness drops from her
the way the seams of a dress unravel at the shoulders.
How could she have known
the swan would be a perfect lover?
The long neck
snakes to its black beak.
The many small sharp teeth,
the heavy webs of the toes
do not scare her,
though violence is part of it.
And the feathers,
the possibilities of feathers
she couldn’t have guessed.

Meryl Natchez

Meryl Natchez’s most recent book is a bilingual volume of translations from Russian: Poems From the Stray Dog Café: Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and Gumilev. She is co-translator of Tadeusz Borowski: Selected Poems. Her book of poems, Jade Suit, appeared in 2001, and her new book, Catwalk, is forthcoming from Longship Press in Spring 2020. Her work has appeared in The Hudson Review, Poetry Northwest, The American Journal of Poetry, ZYZZYVA, The Pinch Literary Review, Atlanta Review, Lyric, The Moth, Comstock Review, and many others. She is on the board of Marin Poetry Center. She blogs at www.merylnatchez.com.

Headshot: Suz Lipman

Photo Credit: Staff