Poetry: “Silkworm Elegy” by Iris Lee
How do we elegize even the smallest of creatures? How do we respond to the “natural order” of their dying? In her poem, Iris Lee gives careful consideration to a box of silkworms; the images and sensations of the speaker’s description makes the language stick in the reader’s mind like fresh silk. The insects are a birthday gift—”little pearl / -white bodies”; then, there’s a tension between the insects’ “recoiling” bodies and their lack of fear of death. Another voice interjects to inform the speaker the silkworms will die soon, and the speaker’s grief is immediate and visceral. In the final moments of the poem, the distance between the speaker and their understanding of mortality—and its proximity to being human—closes.
Read Lee’s poem below.
Silkworm Elegy
ba buys me silkworms
from the wet market for my birthday, little pearl
-white bodies recoiling in the stench
of fishy cardboard. i trail under the pink light
of the meat stalls, each boning
into open mouths. between the crook of my arm,
they’re unafraid, clumping
on the mulberry tongues.
ivan says they’re five weeks away
from mass suicide. natural
order. i cry, until i start screaming. one of them curls
onto my pinkie, its belly cold
like a spoon. at home, ba picks out
the dead ones
with chopsticks. the others pile
over their bodies in fleshy lumps, faithful bulbs of rot
opening the leaves like little
machines. i imagine squishing one
between my fingers & my skin itches. it’s vile
—like god, i feared
my living & their leathery
faces. the chilling gluttony, their bodies
wiggling through over droppings. their bodies,
too soft & vulnerable under the blue
moon of the living room light. my palms sweat,
my heartbeat is a pendulum. i tell ba i don’t want
to name them. they’re too human, ba.
too, too human.
Iris Lee
Iris Lee/李艾诗 (she/her) is a poet and artist from Shanghai. Her work is found in Palette Poetry, Frontier Poetry, Oakland Review, etc. She has been recognized by Princeton University and Columbia Granger Press. She enjoys binging philosophical YouTube videos and listening to Lana del Rey.
