Praise you for that blanket.
Praise you for the stranger
who draped it over my mother,
a naked girl perched,
pregnant, in the snow. Praise you
for my father
who said he’d kill her
if she ran. And for my mother,
who didn’t run. Like a mannequin
or a stupid dog.
Praise you for her skin
the color of cold
jellyfish, her psalms
careening from her throat
to her belly, where your fingers—
praise your fingers—forged
my unformed body. Praise you
for my bloodline. For the savages
and the idiots, whom you love
the same. Thank you
for the bones you stacked in me
to brave this unsettling.
EUGENIA LEIGH is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014), which was a finalist for both the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets. A Korean American poet and Kundiman fellow, she serves as Poetry Editor for Kartika Review. Eugenia holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.
