John Barton
Sunday Sun*
Sparse transept of light
Sunk between red walls
Bricked below the grimed
Roof lines of tenements
Herded into the Lower
East Side where Adam
and Eve angle exiled hours
Of respite into a band
Of narrowing sun and relax
Eve naked and out cold
On a thin pink towel
Blue sunshades dangling
From her left hand
Today=s tabloid about
To slip unread from
The grasp of her right
To scatter and drift, drift
Uncollated through
The hatch they climbed
Up out of into the cool
Oasis of this tarry small
Recess, Adam leaning
Wordless in yesterdays=
Unbuttoned boxers
Against the inky-red
Brick, thumb hitched
Inside a wash-weakened
Waistband, his head
Aslant as, with vacancy
He dreams open-eyed
Seedlings with surprised
Albino leaves uncoiling
Above the watered terra
Cotta pot agape at his feet
Tier after tier of rooftop
TV antennas still deaf
To the noisome inversions
Of falling afternoon haze
Grey infinitudes of smoke
Espaliered above legions
Of off-kilter chimneys.
* Paul Cadmus (1904–1999), egg tempera on pressed wood panel, 1958-59
Page(s) 282-283
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