Krista J.H. Leahy
Minerva sweeps her hair up
sifting out old arrowheads
owl feathers, flyaways, split
bristles escaping the scrape
of the daily comb and broom;
one hundred strokes of wear, war
worn fatigue shine in her hair
stubborn as the threshold dust
ever sweeping in a tide
which must be swept out, tidied
up from the sticky remnants
of yesterday; those footprints
blur her eyes but still she sweeps
hearth, home, hair, clearing today
of the dead, what is dead what
left bare—rifts, tufts, the expanse.
Krista J.H. Leahy is a writer and actor. Her poetry has appeared in Tin House, Free Lunch, and Indefinite Space. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.