—Paul Klee, 1920
_Because I came / Blossoms opened
_ Line, curve, arc, angle, a New Angel
Freed from its stanchion
Cat’s cradle strung from wing fingers
_Because I went / Nothing threw its shadow / Over everything
_ Falling, or rising, bird toes hovering
Lion of Judah, blushes of peach and yellow
Scrolls for a mane, spine for a tabernacle
Dread messenger or dumbstruck witness
The Reich . . . armed to the teeth . . . yet hopeless
_To be an example
_ Of how a people should endure its downfall
_Thorn in the swelling fruit
_ Or, loose the worst
Lee Sharkey was the author of_ _Walking Backwards (Tupelo, 2016), _Calendars of Fire _(Tupelo, 2013), and five earlier books of poems, as well as a number of chapbooks. I Will Not Name It Except to Say, a collection of poems she completed in the last months of her life, will be published by Tupelo in spring 2021. Lee Sharkey died in her home in Portland, Maine, on October 18, 2020.