Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WOMAN, GALLUP, N.M., by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: The shadow of her profile lay stringent Last Line: She shattered on the pavement. Subject(s): Loss; Mothers; Silence | ||||||||
The shadow of her profile lay stringent across the step of curb, a styptic etch against his blood, and he silent beside her, lesions pale in the scars of his limp hands. The baby against the breathing of her breast watched, with black eyes from under a ruffled lambchop hat, the bus passengers walk arranged oblivion in and out. They did not talk. She yielded him nothing but rigid back; her neck a carved anger of tendons where the black down murmured. God! what had he done that could not be darned with tears? She sat lizard dry. Road and railroad ran through her head. The land ate red to a frail mirage of mountains. He raised his head and with a gentleness of hand, hesitant as settling dust, stroked the curve of her neck. His motion was only man to woman. It was not enough. Her silhouette, knifed out of sunlight, fell into the gutter. The passengers walked over it, and she was mute as snakeskin. If he had cast himself into his own shadow under the bus wheel she would not have wept or cracked her parched profile, until night erased it or the baby gummed a pale cry. He reached out again, a cramped consent of fingers down her shoulder. His arm, opening to press the baby's head against the hollow of her collarbone, scythed back into his breath. Across a red scorch to mountains she shattered on the pavement. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SONG OF SILENCE by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON TANKA DIARY (9) by HARRYETTE MULLEN 7 A.M., A MAN AND A WOMAN by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR THIS MORNING, GOD by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR |
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