Hailey Leithauser Poems

Wan oxymoron of a fish, dotted
dun and fledge winged, mud-feathered when
it glides through silt, by nature bottom fed.
...

Philosophic
in its complex, ovoid emptiness,
a skillful pundit coined it as a sort
of stopgap doorstop for those
quaint equations
...

A lot more of than thought, unsought, come out white.
Lemurs of Madagascar, and leopards sans spots.

Brilliant, I think, to spurn pigment and burn
...

The heart of a bear is a cloud-shuttered
mountain. The heart of a mountain's a kiln.
The white heart of a moth has nineteen white
chambers. The heart of a swan is a swan.
...

Midnight's merely blue,
but me, me, me, I'm
through
and through
...

Such green, such green,
this apple-, pea- and celadon,

this emerald and pine and lime
unsheathed to make
...

The heat so peaked tonight
the moon can't cool

a scum-mucked swimming
pool, or breeze
...

Less a nip than gnaw,
the way a goat,

tethered, will ruminate
a rope; the way
...

No other song
or swoop (part
quiver, part swivel and
plash) with
...

O, she says (because she loves to say O),
O to this cloud-break that ravels the night,
O to this moon, its mouthful of sorrow,
O shallow grass and the nettle burr's bite,
...