Airea D. Matthews Biography Airea D. Matthews is the author of Simulacra (Yale, 2017), winner of the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets. She is an assistant professor at Bryn Mawr College. See Work POETRY / Summer 2021 ars poetica, 2019 By Airea D. Matthews a woman who doesn’t read many poems asks is poetry meant to be POETRY / Summer 2021 Mayfly By Airea D. Matthews The wings deceive. They do not spreadand thinly slice the air. They rest limp,almost useless. Dragonfly shape without its dignity. POETRY / Summer 2021 Ars Poetica, 1979 By Airea D. Matthews Digging in dregs of trashto find the bird my father neededto get well, I tore a vanishing line across the length of my palm.