Susan L. Leary

Pseudo Myth

 

Again, I’ve confused     the horseman for the horse, the artillery of a muscle    for a minor hero’s sling. What we do in the name        of obedience, not thinking wonder has     anything to gain over wit. The wheel, at times,    will envy the hands that clutch it. The horse,   the inoperable reigns. Trust me. I, who have neither   head nor heart, whose name is not mine but Girl.     What’s torn through the center is as good a guide                            as any.
 

Susan L. Leary is the author of A Buffet Table Fit for Queens (Small Harbor Publishing, 2023), winner of the Washburn Prize; Contraband Paradise (Main Street Rag, 2021); and This Girl, Your Disciple (Finishing Line Press, 2019), finalist for The Heartland Review Press Chapbook Prize and semi-finalist for the Elyse Wolf Prize with Slate Roof Press. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Tar River Poetry, Superstition Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Cherry Tree, The MacGuffin, Jet Fuel Review, jmww, and Pithead Chapel. Recently, she was a finalist for the 16th Mudfish Poetry Prize, judged by Marie Howe. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami, where she also teaches Writing Studies. Visit her at www.susanlleary.com.