On a Long Strand of Hair Found in a Biography of Frank O'Hara

     She bows her head above the book,
     sitting on the wicker in the screened-in porch
     facing the Sound. She's skimming,
     eager to get to the early sixties scene,
     the frantic mountings and couplings.
     Later she examines the webs tattooed along her thighs,
     peeking over her shoulder like a pinup girl.
     Poems live in those places where furniture
     and flesh meet. There in the burn and fade.
     After lunch, she carries a basket to the shore
     and stretches out and reads until she drifts to sleep,
     light enough to hear the wind moving its lips
     across the pages. Evening, he drives back from the City.
     Tie askew, drink in hand, he gossips about the gallery.
     She describes the odd trajectory of the career:
     the booze, the lovers, the politics of Art.
     Art, she says with a capital A.
     She says: The days go by so goddamned quickly
     when you're here on your own. But then, you know,
     you reach an hour late afternoon
     that simply will not budge. The sun just hangs there,
     flummoxed, unsure of its instructions.
     That's nice, he says, meaning the way the sun sets
     highlights in her hair. It looks professional.
     A cool breeze slips through the window
     and two mosquitos blow into the room,
     shifting the weight of evening toward autumn.
     Well, he says for no clear reason, that's all she wrote.
     And the hair falls. Or had fallen earlier,
     pages tossed over it like spadefuls of earth.
     She rises and rubs the back of her neck
     and feels the slight swell and curses softly.
     She pours a nightcap to carry up with the book.
     As she ascends, she turns. Wasn't it all
     just a little too full, she says,
     balancing book and drink on the bannister,
     twisting her hair into a chignon. I know
     how it ends, she says, but I'll read on anyway.


     Barry Seiler  (Click for bio.)


      


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