I imagine how
a young woman in seventeenth-century venice
writes poetry to cope with the plague.
when her sister takes ill, she sits by her bedside
praying, scribbling, weeping, wiping the sweat
from both their foreheads. the plague doctor asks her
what she is writing. rather than answering, she hides the pages
in the folds of her skirt—
black for all those who have already
perished. the next day, he asks again.
hoping it might save her sister, she tells him.
a poet, he says. a poet amid the plague.
because she bows her head in shame, she misses the light
in his eyes. when, day after day, he sees only
the bleeding, the dying, the disappearing,
poetry
is the furthest thing
from a shame.
Maggie Wang is an undergraduate studying history and economics at the University of Oxford. Her poetry has appeared in Canvas, The Alexandria Quarterly, Hypaethral, and The Ash, and she has won awards from The Poetry Society and the Folger Shakespeare Library. When not writing, she enjoys playing the piano and exploring nature.