Poetry from Amy Leigh Wicks

Photo by Will Langenberg

Tirza

I am not a green cup
on the end of a stem. I am

asking who will sanctuary
you, or let you feast?

What we make might
survive winter.

You are a handful of dust
but so alive— lichen-like

holding onto the small
smoothnesses of a day.

How could I leave
after you

wilded the forest
for my smallness—

Or why did you stay

When birds
gathered silent as stars
on branches—

How did you
know I would move?
.

.

Amy Leigh Wicks is a doctoral research scholar in poetry at Victoria University of Wellington’s IIML in New Zealand. She holds her MFA from The New School in New York and recent work can be found in drDOCTOR, Turbine/Kapohau, and SPORT 45. She likes motorcycles, outdoor feasts with chandeliers, and stories without endings.