by Amanda McLeod
After Some Hairs on a Shower Wall
Naked and cold,
Growing colder,
I see them:
A woman’s face and an eighth note.
Flawless—
Immortalized on white tile,
Fixed in condensation,
Unintentionally rendered in brunette.
What genre does she sing tonight?
Hair tenderly thrust into ringlets,
Lips almost glowing red.
Is it the blues?
I think not,
Because now it is Spring
And the eighth note curls
From her nearly red lips
Like the body of a new lover
About to fold.
The music is hers,
The music is hers now.
I like to think she sings a ballad.
I venture in again:
With new eyes, I question
If the eighth note
Is not music at all,
But a swan…
A swan finally devoured.
Leda’s swan.
Leda’s face.
Leda’s teeth bared.
Leda’s hair tossed back,
Captured free,
Almost trembling in energy.
I know she is no longer hungry.
Tonight, I study hairs with Whitman.
Images crafted in my mind now
Superimposed on lost pieces of myself,
Marking the discovery of a new world.
A world comprised of a self,
A self expanded to a world,
A world complete:
Woman,
Music,
Eaten swan,
Leda, head thrown back in laughter at last.
Perhaps this is all that remains
of the grand transcendental ideal—
Myself,
Naked and cold.
Tessa C. Berman (she/her) is a current undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, where she studies as an Echols Scholar, Ideal Scholar, and recipient of a Pruden Scholarship. She is working toward completing a thesis on bird symbolism in poetry from the Romantic period forward and is currently curating an upcoming special collections exhibit on the work of poet and civil rights activist, Anne Spencer. Her poetry has previously appeared in Literary Matters and The Ekphrastic Review. Tessa can be found on Instagram @t.c.berman.
Amanda McLeod writes about nature, culture, and other things that keep her daydreaming or awake in the night. Sometimes she makes art as well. Her work has been published extensively, most recently in the anthology Offerings from Comma Press. Catch her on the socials @AmandaMWrites, at her website amandamcleodwrites.com, or sprawled on the banks of the nearest river.