My maker unfastened the branch from heaven’s hinge
And with that branch,
She pried open the three-poisoned god in me
And from that god,
She shook out the three-cornered sack of culpability in me
And from that sack,
She produced a three-pronged compass that unmoored the navigator in me
And from that navigator,
My maker ungendered the tri-phallus, triple-breasted woman in me
And from that woman,
My maker stippled a three-cornered quilt of kindness in me
And that quilt
Comforted the three-chimed loneliness in me
And that loneliness
Tuned the three-tongued oratorio in me
And the oratorio
Reverberated in the beak of the three-trilled bird
Who reached me just in time to tell you that
In the garden’s conjugations of war, envy, and greed,
You are beauty
And the infinitive of beauty is
to be.
Mia Leonin is the author of four poetry collections: Fable of the Pack-Saddle Child (BkMk Press), Braid, Unraveling the Bed, and Chance Born (Anhinga Press), and a memoir, Havana and Other Missing Fathers (University of Arizona Press). Leonin has published poetry and creative nonfiction in New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Guernica, Indiana Review, Witness, North American Review, and others. She teaches creative writing at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s National Poetry Month project: Sing the Body: A Collection of Poems Praising Our Selves!
With support from Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab (WPHL) and Florida International University’s Center for Women and Gender Studies, we are publishing poems that celebrate body positivity and our selves.
In addition to publishing the poems as poems of the day, 10 select Sing the Body poems will be displayed on FIU’s main campus near mirrors and places where women encounter themselves. These poems will live in a dedicated portfolio on our website.
Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting SWWIM Every Day! Happy National Poetry Month!
