Julie Cyr
Leda in the Gulf
after the painting by Adam Miller
When Deepwater Horizon exploded, Leda’s baby latched on as the waves became slick, the film refracting light into a false rainbow. Leda sat naked on a rock while the swan died, oil cleaving to feathers as pollen clings in spring. The arrogance of looking for the love of your life, adrift. Leda looks in the smallest places – the shell of a hermit crab or under a pebble, the vast places taken up by spillage and underwater plumes. Leda sat and nursed her baby until her milk ran dry. Even a goddess can’t breathe grease. Her head settled into the water, her baby bobbing like the swan, the sea lubricious with oil and fire.
Originally published in MER Vol. 20 – Mother Figures
Julie Cyr has been published by Slipstream, Broad River Review, and Lost Horse Press in the Nasty Women Poets Anthology, among others. She was awarded 2014 Best of Poetry by Blood and Thunder Journal, a finalist in the 2016 Rash Awards for Poetry, nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize, and won first place in the 2020 Poetry Society of NH Members Contest. Julie holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University.