Now, taking those windows and getting
serious about thinking about where I could write myself down
meant considering some of the options for what
could be the writing surface.
Should it be the skin, paper, canvas, glass, marble?
What are some of the surface possibilities?
And so this one took a deep look at photographic processes,
writing after a photograph by Edward Steichen
called Heavy Roses.
The poem takes its title from the photograph.
And when there's an "I" in the poem,
it's imagining that the photographer is thinking
or speaking, mostly thinking.
So I'd like to read this.
Again, this book has a number of long sequences that --
they're a place to work on extended wings,
as Wallace Stevens once said.
So, "Heavy Roses."
"One, 2:00 in the afternoon, the village florist cellar.
Two, in tubs cool on the floor, three or four shades to a tub.
Three, they have no mirror.
They have to ask.
For am I damask or an older woman's blush?
And I have, five, some yellow ones in the back,
shopgirl says.
Six, am I the crimson of veinal blood?
Seven, or more like arterial blood
shouted on a suicide sleeve?
Eight, no, no, I say, I'm confused enough as it is.
Nine, am I simply unsatisfied?
10, or truly insatiable as I have been accused of being?
11, I am drawn to these, I say.
12, and I watch the shadow of my own hand hover.
To be thumbing your heart to get that drunk.
Rainless night in Voulangis, full bloom."