Poem: "I Do, I Do"

I Do, I Do

In me (the worm) clearly

is no righteousness, but this—

persistence

            H.D., “The Walls Do Not Fall”

I’m eating my way through the books

of dead women poets—

Aemilia Lanyer’s garden

where Eve is blameless

the robin-eye

in Elizabeth Bishop

Phillis Wheatley’s bird-

of-paradise

the swart swan

song by Marianne Moore

Anna Wickham’s strangled cry

the tunes of Li Qingzhao

Annie Finch, not the American anthologist,

the Countess of Winchilsea

the living

are eaten too

Elisabeth Bletsoe’s Sherborne Woodcock,

Pied Wagtail, Starling

Molly Peacock

Rita Dove

And one born in Ghana

whose name is

a birdcall

Ata Ama Aidoo