Margaret LeMay
Wakes, stumbles the haze out of
routine borne not out of need
but aloneness, an algorithm, a furnace
of switches and clicks, footfall
and rose clippings. Wakes at a voice
that is missing, turning his small face
from the photo, from that which
lacks words. Wildflowers are knots
at the side of the road, chokes
in the throat, tensions in the stomach.
Decals on the wall with petals
poised, posed, cast to be
perpetually falling. Who are you,
there in the roses, when the sounds
are crashing the night.
Margaret LeMay
Margaret LeMay’s poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Better, Brink, the North American Review, The Cortland Review, The Iowa Review and elsewhere. A chapbook, sample.spring, is forthcoming in February 2026 from Finishing Line Press. She is a graduate of Barnard College and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Margaret teaches poetry and creative writing at Coe College.