Victoria Lynne McCoy
Self-Portrait as Odysseus
after Rebecca Lindenberg
If there is wreck in me, let it be
anchor and all. O you beautiful ones
with your jackal call. The steel trap of you
in your meadow starred with flowers. You honey-
throated ghosts. Ripples in the windless hours.
My Dead are waiting at the bottom.
Sing the bees free of me that I may listen. Sing
the wound clean out of the skin. I come to you
lying down in my petal-thin excuses—
you already know my name. Sing me soft-
boned. Sing me home. You, with the map
of the unknown carved in your palms. Untie me
from grief’s tall mast. See how it’s made
a gully of me. O you gods of relief, let the water in.
Victoria Lynne McCoy
Victoria Lynne McCoy holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from the University of Redlands’ Johnston Center for Integrative Studies. Her work has appeared in The Paris-American, Best New Poets 2012, Boxcar Poetry Review, and PANK, among others. Victoria lives in Brooklyn, where she is an associate curator of Page Meets Stage and Poetry Editor of Four Way Review.