USA
Women in Doorways
Women relish the hushed absence of men.
Our desire for them in temporary abeyance
unwatched unappraised unafraid unknown
they celebrate in more ways than we know.
Like Hopper’s yellow-haired prairie queen
exempt buttons undone naked now and then
they noon pose in shadowed doorways
fusing sunlight and flesh -- scenting wind.
Midnight they loll sipping warm lazy rain
tracing trees tapping leaves trading places
posing in wine-shadowed doorways naked
tasting and fingering long slow rivulets from God.
Women cherish the hushed absence of men:
it is not always us they are thinking of.
How Does Edward Hopper Know?
How do you know
Edward Hopper
painter of real
women
alone
look like this
have looked like this
will look like this
instant stopped
crawling into bed
standing in doorways
or rocking in Brooklyn
when any pose at all
draped or nude
mute or sassy
is at least
a whispered imposition
touched with fraud
if done for money
or whipped from color wheels
and your imagination?
Daddy-long-legs
I
Sixteen legs thin like thread
intruded
office in overnight
arachnid trespassers
husband and wife?
establishing residence
distracting me
morning driven
report not done
spun silk linked to Erie fields
and cranky Northgate grass
Tilford, Freddy, and me
our mothers ----------phobic
what we couldn’t say nor spell
in house chased
finger smashed
how we earned our mothers’ praise
and sifted golden cakes
II
Sat down later
dad straightened out
reducing bit by bit what we didn’t know
we didn’t know
No No No No Huh?
we wouldn’t like it if
stronger strangers tore our legs off
laughed if we cripple walked
ripped up our tents we labored long to make
what a black widow
a venomous concern
looked like
if we fell over it
or the days we’d waste
on women’s fears
and manliness
times we’d sift for ourselves
Daddy-long-legs
seeking golden space.
© Copyright, 2000, John Griffiths (Thomas Downing).
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.