O, She Says
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,
O to heart’s flare, its wobbly satellite,
O step after step in stumbling tempo,
O owl in oak, O rout of black bat flight,
(O moaned in Attic and Esperanto)
O covetous tongue, O fat fandango,
O gnat tango in the hot, ochered light,
O wind whirred leaves in subtle inferno,
O flexing of sea, O stars bolted tight,
O ludicrous swoon, O blind hindsight,
O torching of bridges and blood boiled white,
O sparrow and arrow and hell below,
O, she says, because she loves to say O.
— Hailey Leithauser, Poetry (July/August 2009)
Megan Baldrige: I love the joy and delight in this poem, all its surprises (“o gnat tango”) and I love reading it aloud: “O” is such an open-ended reverential vowel.
Back to Poetry Project index | Back to Poem 18 | Forward to Poem 20