Fauna of Mirrors

Erika Kielsgard

Apparition of L’Énigme still in the mind
on the northern bank of the River Seine.

Eastward past book stalls
down a stretch of cobblestone

littered in horse-chestnuts and mauve leaves;
the grave of Gustave Doré—

“the throwing back by a body or surface of light . . .”
or sword without absorbing it.

Swollen eye of titan arum,
carrion scent summoning

bone from catacombs’ ossuaries;
snail shells in soil at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise:

some wholly contained,
some unoccupied or second hand.

Erika Dane Kielsgard is an MFA candidate at Brooklyn College. Her poems have found generous homes in Bone Bouquet, Claudius Speaks, Cleaver Magazine, and Rust + Moth.