Poetry: ODD HISTORY by Leigh Lucas
Leigh Lucas makes a providence of image, condensing so much meaning to a single, inevitable point—a destiny in 5 lines and 44 words. Notice and enjoy, just how much mystery “ODD HISTORY” releases from the tension within its one powerful scene, burning as it is.
ODD HISTORY
Here’s the rub. Fickle memory, swirling time, debilitating seasickness.
Standing here at the red edge, arms full of unsent letters. Looking up at the coconut tree, the
long, serrated leaves, coconuts near the top and
dangerous.
We burn in one placethen maybe another.
Leigh Lucas
Leigh Lucas (she/her) is a poet and writer in San Francisco. She holds two degrees in Creative Writing—an MFA from Warren Wilson and a BA from Stanford, where she won an Urmy/Hardy Poetry Prize. She won AWP’s 2020 Kurt Brown Prize for emerging poet and was a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee for her poetry that won the 2021 Driftwood Press In-House Poetry Prize. She has been awarded residencies at Tin House Summer Workshop, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Community of Writers in Olympic Valley, and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her poems appear in and are forthcoming from Smartish Pace, minnesota review, and Poet Lore, among others.
