The Carrying

Ada Limón, Milkweed Editions (AUGUST) Unknown $22 (120pp), 978-1-57131-512-0

The vein of greatness that pulses through the work of Ada Limón is remarkably subtle, in the same way that beauty in a human isn’t a rote assemblage of chiseled noses, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her extraordinary poems act the part of an autumn leaf slowly descending from on high—only when it reaches the ground, and you regroup your thoughts, do you realize that you witnessed something mesmerizing. Limón is the author of five collections, and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the American Poetry Review, and the New York Times.

PREY

The muffled, ruptured voice of a friend turns into an electrical signal and breaks open to tell me her sister has died. A muted pause, then a heaving. Sounds sucked from lungs. Outside, as the sun descends to inch-high on the fallow horizon, a hawk grasp-lands on the telephone pole. Brawny and barrelchested, it perches eyeing the late winter seed head of switchgrass. Later, we’re talking about self care, being strong, surviving a long time. The hawk launches as the sun oozes puce and ochre and sinks. I write to another friend who says her partner is like a hawk—steadfast, wary. I think of the sharp-shinned hunters, the Coopers, the Swainsons, how hawks are both serene and scary as hell, scary that is, if you’re the mouse. That’s the trick, we say, isn’t it? Don’t be the mouse.