about the author

Leslie Anne Mcilroy won the 2001 Word Press Poetry Prize for her full-length collection Rare Space and the 1997 Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Prize for her chapbook Gravel. She also took first place in the 1997 Chicago Literary Awards Competition judged by Gerald Stern. Her second full-length book, Liquid Like This, was published by Word Press in 2008. Leslie’s work appears in numerous publications including American Poetry: The Next Generation, Dogwood, The Emily Dickinson Award Anthology, The Mississippi Review, Nimrod International Journal of Prose & Poetry and Pearl. Leslie works as a copywriter in Pittsburgh, PA, where she lives with her daughter Silas, and writer/guitarist, Don Bertschman, with whom she performs her poetry.


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The Treasure

Leslie Anne Mcilroy



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—after Clint Hurdle, Manager, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2011

I am the shipwreck
and the storm.
Sometimes I pour
down so hard,
I sink. My anchor
is made of pearls
and my captain is
in the cabin drinking—
that’s her job.

She has a map
and stars and
rage enough to
capsize any
vessel she
chooses.
Strike a match
in the night
and she answers
with lightning.
Fire on water.
Impossibilities.

It’s beautiful, really,
all that fury going
down—winds
whipping, masts
cracking—and
whether or not
you die, you
have this—
the story of how
you never
jumped ship,
you never
let go.





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