Poem of the Week

Sean

Leslie Sainz

Wild rabbits steering clear of the yard.
If I were anyone else—
a thought I don’t complete.

The lamp in the very next room,
and the first time I’d say No.
I spent the next day cooking.

I didn’t have enough Tupperware
for what you’d done. In the evening,
an exorbitant amount of time

trying to decide which side of the glass
the bug was on—the reflection
of its confident legs on the light linen curtain.

Shame: the top of my face, less skin.

Leslie Sainz is the author of the debut poetry collection Have You Been Long Enough at Table, forthcoming from Tin House in 2023. The recipient of a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry fellowship, she is the Managing Editor of the New England Review.
Originally published:
July 27, 2022

Featured

Rachel Cusk

The novelist on the “feminine non-state of non-being”
Merve Emre

Books

Renaissance Women

A new book celebrates—and sells short—Shakespeare’s sisters
Catherine Nicholson

Fady Joudah

The poet on how the war in Gaza changed his work
Aria Aber

You Might Also Like

Poem of the Week

The Reprieve

Lee Upton

Poem of the Week

7th Peered Langwich Arts

A. H. Jerriod Avant

Poem of the Week

Clipping

Cecily Parks

Newsletter

Sign up for The Yale Review newsletter and keep up with news, events, and more.