WEBVTT

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The next poem I'll read
is called, "Woman Before

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Aquarium," the title poem.

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And the picture's on the cover.

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It's by Matisse.

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And it occurred to me, I have to
admit, after I wrote the poem,

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but never mind, that
Matisse, in his paintings,

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represented two of the
themes that women are

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working out or working into.

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Because it's mainly trouble,
actually, in his paintings.

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And one of those very
sensual odalisques,

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those women who are
laying on couches.

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They look like they're about
to eat chocolates or something,

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and they only got half
of their clothes on,

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and a lot of very bright
colors around them.

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And the other, were these
very almost prim women.

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Kind of aloof in some way.

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And it occurred to me that
the two things that women

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are doing these days.

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On the one hand, claiming the
right to be sexual beings,

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and claiming the right
to be thinking beings,

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having, all these years,
been feeling beings,

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emotional beings.

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So in a way, he became
an important figure,

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or his figures became
important figures for me.

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And that's sort of what's
going on in this poem.

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"The goldfish ticks
silently, little finned gold

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watch on its chain of
water, swaying over

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the rivulets of the
brain, over the hard rocks

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and spiny shells.

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The world is round,
distorted the clerk said when

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I insisted on around fishbowl.

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Now, like a Matisse woman,
I study my lesson slowly,

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crushing a warm
pinecone in my hand,

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releasing the resin, its
memory of wild nights,

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my Indian back crushing
the pine needles,

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the trapper standing over
me, his white-dead skin.

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Fear of the crushing,
fear of the human smell.

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A Matisse woman always
wants to be a mermaid,

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her odalique body
stretches pale and heavy

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before her and the
exotic wall hangings.

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The only power of the woman--

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to be untouchable.

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But dressed, a simple Western
face, a schoolgirl's haircut,

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the plain desk of
ordinary work, she

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sits crushing the pinecone of
fear, not knowing it is fear.

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The paper before her is blank.

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The aquarium sits like a
lantern, a green inner light,

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round and green, a souvenir
from the underworld,

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its gold residents opening and
closing their wordless mouths.

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I am on the shore of the
room, glinting inside

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with a flicker of
water, heart ticking

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with the message of biology
to a kindred species.

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The mermaid-- not
the enchantress,

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but the mermaid of double life--

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sits on the rock, combing the
golden strands of human hair,

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thinking as always of swimming."

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