The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Laméris, Danusha. “Leg.” Spring 2021 issue of The Southern Review.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the line number from which the quotation is taken.

"Leg," a poem by Danusha Laméris originally published in the spring 2021 issue of The Southern Review, is composed of eleven stanzas of varying lengths. In Laméris's characteristically intimate style, the speaker in "Leg" closely observes the events unfolding around her and makes meaning by drawing connections between herself and others. Grief, solace, and nature thematically appear in the poem and throughout Laméris's body of work. The same year that "Leg" was published in The Southern Review, Laméris's 2020 collection Bonfire Opera won the 2021 Northern California Book Award in Poetry and was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Award.

In "Leg," the speaker and her friend come across a deer leg while on a walk. They deduce that the deer was killed and eaten by a mountain lion. This prompts the speaker's reflections on mortality and sisterhood, and she considers herself in relation to other people and beings in her life. At the end of the poem, the speaker ultimately draws a line of sisterhood between herself and the mountain lion. Grounded in natural imagery, "Leg" explores female relationships as well as those between humans and more-than-humans.