Mikaela Curry

1 poem

DANCING WITH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

This poem is a “Golden Shovel” style poem with the last word of each line, in total, comprising the poem, “Awed by Her Splendor”, by the Greek poet Sappho

it’s not that she was immediately awed 

by any particular notice, by the angle of a jaw, by

the stretch of a neck, it was not so much her 

soft angular beauty, but more the complete splendor

by which she wore the world around her like stars 

their brilliance overwhelming when she was too near

anytime she poured music, both a ceramic pitcher and the 

hands that made it, clay-covered dirt lovely 

in her looseness, as she might swing to the moon 

inside her own shadow, there is no cover

for such a starlight, too full, without needing their 

approval, she was the rings of her own 

planet, circling mysterious and moon bright 

emerald stillness in the eyes of all her faces 

there is no calm before a storm when 

there is no storm, it could be ordinary that she 

moves this way, in the way that all extreme wonder is 

becoming something to get used to, meeting at the roundest 

intersection of two bodies that move on the edge of a night and 

when the clouds fill even the ground with their dew thick lights 

there is the curious disappearance of the separation of sky and earth 

an intertwining as if dancing, she with 

the sudden weight of a stone in her 

pocket, night blind reaching for gleaming strands of silver

 

“Awed by her splendor /stars near the lovely /moon cover their own /bright faces /when she /is roundest and lights / earth with her silver” - Sappho

 

Mikaela Curry is a published and award-winning poet, community organizer and environmental scientist living in Eastern Kentucky. She has received multiple grants from the Kentucky Foundation For Women, was a featured artist in the Women of Appalachia 10th Anniversary Project, and has had her writing featured in a wide range of publications from Cold Mountain Review to Spectral Lines: Poems about Scientists. She earned advanced degrees in biological sciences and has worked as an environmental specialist, consultant, conservationist and researcher. She is currently prioritizing the inclusion of voting rights, climate justice and the centering of indigenous values into her work and is always interested in collaboration. You can find out more at www.mikaelacurry.com.