"Bad Leg" by James Kelly Quigley, Read by the Poet

Bad Leg

the koi in the koi pond

are not to be trifled with

if there were no koi

in this koi pond

I couldn’t fathom

meeting you later for quiche

dragging the bad leg

of my heart behind me

Analysis by Quinn Franzen

Like a hard candy that won’t dissolve, James Kelly Quigley’s “Bad Leg” has a sweet shell, but its smooth surface resists reduction. Though the syntax is simple, a persistent strangeness keeps the reader at arm’s length. Why can’t the speaker fathom quiche? And what the hell is up with these fish? 

A cryptic and humorous tension arises between the koi’s apparent harmlessness and the speaker’s warning they are “not to be trifled with.” Indeed, the force of the poem hinges on the fish’s mysterious powers of influence — if the koi weren’t there, then the speaker’s quiche date would not (could not?) happen.

Quigley’s speaker is, by turns, flirty and mercurial, hurt and wry. Their diction is odd and delicious — “trifle” and “quiche” insist on the poem’s confectionary nature. The persistent sounding of koi/coy hints at the poem’s reluctance to being known. The poem is capped with the not-so-transformative metaphor of heart = leg. 

Like a reflection in a pond, “Bad Leg” flickers through various tropes of love poetry as they swim by: a trifle to be consumed, an oddity, a veil, an injury.

James Kelly Quigley is a poet and painter. His chapbooks include Beautiful Hands (Press Break, 2025) and Aloneness (Umpteen Triangles, 2023). Recent writing has appeared in Bennington Review, Electric Literature, Poetry Wales, and The Southern Review. His paintings can be found online and on the street.

Quinn is a performer and poet. His work can be read in Pleiades, Fugue, The Journal, Barrelhouse, Sonora Review, and elsewhere. He is a Poetry Editor at Bear Review, and received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. A recipient of the Galway Kinnell Scholarship from Community of Writers, he has also received support from Brooklyn Poets and Prospect Street Writers House. His acting work can be seen on TV, on- and off-Broadway, and in regional theaters across the country.