Come visit my new place
and see the novelties
I use to decorate:
my ornamental plates,
my tall black-figure vase,
my souvenirs from Greece,
the map of the Peloponnese
I’ve tacked above my bed.
Its inlets and its bays
make me feel at peace.
With it hanging overhead,
I sleep sounder than the dead.
Think you can prove me wrong?
Please go ahead! Go on!
Please visit at your ease,
any night you please.
I have such nice belongings
I wish that you could see.
I even have the book
where Athenaeus relates
how the loveliest girl in Greece
once laid Diogenes,
the homely sage, for free.

First published in Tar River Poetry, Fall 2017

Jenna Le is the author of A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2018), which won 2nd Place in the Elgin Awards. and Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011). She was selected by Marilyn Nelson as winner of Poetry By The Sea’s inaugural sonnet competition. Her poems appear or are forthcoming from AGNI, Bellevue Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Rattle, and West Branch. She has a B.A. in math and an M.D. and lives and works in NYC.