Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Tuscan (Poem 344)

In a large house 
("mansion" is gauche)
in a well-to-do suburb
(Why is it, we don't say 
rich or poor 
anymore?)
a brittle, woman 
starves herself
to skeletal proportions
(unconsciously aping
that which she abhors).
Her proficiency in shrinking 
is unrelated to any 
social dilemma or moral crisis. 
She does not feel stifled. 
She does not feel voiceless. 
She has never felt less-than,
or passed-by. Yet, slowly, 
she vanishes, eclipsed 
by furniture that  grows 
grander in scale, heavier
day by day: looming trunks, 
towers and pillars of rosewood. 
(As a casket, her writing desk 
would more than suffice.)
"Tuscan," she tells her friends,
drinking espresso with 
a paper-thin twist of lemon rind 
from tiny bird's egg tazze.
"It's so lush. I'm doing 
the entire house
in Tuscan."

(c) 2014, by hannah six

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