Читать книгу Self Help - Elizabeth Poreba - Страница 9

for Gertrude Tredwell of 29 East 4th Street, 1840–1933

In the favored front room, in Father’s bed,

windows papered to keep out cold,

she lay ready to die to the Kingdom

as she’d been told, propped on feathers plucked

from geese of bygone feasts, remembering

the great china platter, grace intoned

before meals, also perhaps graces

she had missed, the drapes always drawn

to spare the furniture from the sun.

It was hers at the last, the stately parlor,

the marble stoop pocked by coal ash,

the triple friezes belting the high ceilings

and the columns on Father’s fine wardrobe,

temple to the camphor-scented topcoat,

the opera hat and folded cravats.

Even when the charming nephew died

she continued to preside, imperial,

object of rumors of wealth and madness,

living past the money until rot took the walls

and soot shadowed the plaster work.

Now I, the smiling docent, guard

the fine red Rococo parlor set

where she and her sisters sat for life

waiting for the maid to light the fire.

I watch the sun touch the carpet square

as it did in her day at the same hour,

waiting boxed in her house, hard-pressed

against the tenements, even

the Ladies’ Mile gone, a thread pulled uptown.

The tourists depart. The house hunches,

its fanlight flutters, its pillars brace

like shoulders tensed above the street.

It is the hour for Gertrude to appear

and wait with me until it’s time

to close the shutters and take in the sign.

We sit, straight backs scarcely touching

our chairs, two ladies about to disappear

like the house, holding tight

to our consequence, despite

accumulating evidence.