Dear Mr. Merrill
I hope you'll pardon the informality
of this letter, postmarked Olympia
(Greece, not Washington), its task not simple:
crossing lines you've crossed, time, mortality,
to find you, who spent a lifetime crossing lines
out, twisting, polishing them to shine
cool and lustrous as the statue I fell in
love with yesterday. I'm sure you saw him
too, that perfect Hermes by Praxitelis,
full lips, hips contrapposto. I wished to draw him
down, latter-day Pygmalion, and embrace
him. Or barring Eros (and the guards) I'd trace
his face, the supple muscle of the marble.
I had a student who resembled him—
yes, Angelos—arrogant and beautiful.
I never touched him though he touches me in dreams.
Eros dangles his perfection in our faces
like one-armed Hermes with his promise of the grapes.
I was certain I'd dream of him last night.
Instead I dreamed another in the growing chain
of others with whom it ended not quite
right. But the thirst was perfect, if its price pain
and shattered crystal, spilling wine, all part
and parcel of our imperfect lives. Then Art
startles out of heartache, marble or page.
You learned this long ago. Now I too see
the wildest things require the strongest cages,
the panther's double bars, or the seeds,
bloody sweet and bitter, in the pomegranate's
rind. Love held tight in a sonnet.
Source:
Additional Source: ha fondato insieme a Lucamatteo Rossi l’atlante Navegasión, & Giorgiomaria Cornelio (1997) (2022, April 16). Moira Egan: I Cuori Bruciati delle stelle. NAZIONE INDIANA. https://www.nazioneindiana.com/2022/04/16/cornelio-2/
Author: Moira Egan
Moira Egan, who lives in Rome, Italy, has a BA from Bryn Mawr College, an MFA from Columbia University and an MA from Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. It was during her studies at Columbia university, James Merrill selected her graduate manuscript for the David Craig Austin Prize.
The New Criterion Poetry Prize was awarded to her collection, Synaesthesium (2017). Hot Flash Sonnets (2013), Spin (2010), and Bar Napkin Sonnets (2009), which won the 2008 Ledge Poetry Chapbook Competition, are previous books published in the United States (2004).
Egan's writing fellowships have included the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (as a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellow), the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, and the James Merrill House. She is a Creative Writing teacher at St. Stephen's School in Rome.
Source:
Martino, M. A. di. (2018, March 21). Moira Egan. The American Mag. https://theamericanmag.com/moira-egan/The American
Poetry Foundation. (n.d.). Moira Egan. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/moira-egan
Zajac, M. K. (2007, November 16). Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/fashion/weddings/18VOWS.html
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