Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE ADMIRER, by CLAUDIA EMERSON Poet's Biography First Line: He had before come courting--with pecans Subject(s): Admiration; Courtship; Food & Eating | ||||||||
September, 1926, clear He had before come courting - with pecans or peaches, berries. She had those times been able to thank him with one of her pies and be done with him. For this, though, he would want supper, to sit at the table with her after supper. For this, she reckoned he had spent most of the morning emptying the sky of its plenty: the doves spilled from burlap in iridescent disarray, three dozen at least, a shimmering bouquet. And so the afternoon was for her defined; the hour deepened the mound of feathers, blue-gray, plucked in porch-dusk, and the wind, disinterested, would once in a while stir them. She knew they were easy to bring down over a field where they would fall into the tangled grasses and go on flying against what had been wind. Easy - as this was not: feet, gut, heart, the smooth brow with eyes open like garnets glowing; she cut and tossed over and over what was in the end useless onto the feathers, a last and bloody bed, or to the cats, who growled and circled her, to keep the peace. A dove would amount to, at best, a half-dozen mouthfuls, the dark breast tender but gristled with shot - black seed. She threw a whole bird to the nursing cat and wondered whether the white kitten had opened its eyes; if they were blue, it would be deaf, she had been told and told she could not let it live. She would see about that. Her mother called down how are they coming. More work than they're worth, she answered back, for such a little meat. Even with the birds still baking, yet to be eaten, with still the biscuits to stir up and gravy yet to make from the meager fat - with a strait hour to pass before he would lean back from the table and to pick his teeth and sigh - she had decided he should have left the doves their beloved sky, for she would not be won. Copyright © Claudia Emerson. http://www.wlu.edu/~shenando | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WAITRESSING IN THE ROOM WITH A THOUSAND MOONS by MATTHEA HARVEY CANDIED YAMS' by TERRANCE HAYES DINNER OF HERBS by LOUISE MOREY BOWMAN THE BANQUET SONG by KENNETH KOCH SPLITTING AN ORDER by TED KOOSER IMPELLED by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |
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