Image by Yaoting Wang
Image by Yaoting Wang
What makes the dead turn
Beyond decomposition
Is mystery is radical is
Teleportation is a man coming
Back to life is a toddler falling
From a playground swing
Zenith-spat smartly into mud
Seeing all around lose her
In descent puddle and dirt find her
A worm forced from home by rain
Wriggles closer to her ear saying
Baby is a deer knowing no
Language but understanding
What it can safely eat
Turning all the rest aside
The hummingbird caught
In a guitar string instantly
Released into the authority
Of blue. Unquestioning.
An event like birth or bike riding
Leslie McIntosh’s debut volume of poetry, within-group variance, was selected by Terrance Hayes for the 2025 Changes Book Prize. Leslie’s poems have appeared in Adi Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Foglifter, Fourteen Hills, Indiana Review, Obsidian, Ploughshares, Southern Humanities Review, Witness, and widely elsewhere.