Donna Pucciani
Washington Square
The face in the door belongs to another.
How they’d all sat in rows waiting for wisdom:
the core of a string quartet,
shadows of Plato’s cave, Marx’s proletariat,
in a building dark as a monster chewing them like cud,
then spitting them out in violet caps and gowns
and golden tassels of sweet arrogance.
The figure in the doorway is not her own.
It appears rosy, smooth, the brow unlined,
shoulders erect even while ducking frisbees,
dodging late-day shadows and spaniels.
Old men used to play chess in the southwest corner;
a small wiry man sat in the tree on West Fourth
outside the Japanese steak house, camera cocked
on a sharp cheekbone, reaching out for her image.
The walls, still painted pale green, cream, or
institutional brown, hug lintels framing ancient doors,
wooden desks blank and inscrutable as professors’ eyes.
Convocations of scholars retired or dead,
with Burberries and briefcases, lug dissertations.
This body of knowledge and knowers is no longer her body,
nor the body of clouds, wind, and rain,
nor the substance of porridge for breakfast, a deadline at work,
a child crying at bedtime, a tired spouse emptying the garbage.
She touches the visage in the glassed threshold
of the Arts Building, leaves a fingerprint on that cheek.
They both disappear in the glancing sun.
It is late afternoon.
Page(s) 8
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The