ekphrastic poetry

Since I wrote about a Debra Hensley-Luczycki print in my last blog, An Art Walk Through Our Home: The Smirking Heart https://suzettemariebishop.com/2019/02/18/an-art-walk-through-our-home-the-smirking-heart/, I thought I’d write a poem response to a second print by her. Debra surprised us with this print which she gave to us as a wedding present. The print is appropriately titled Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Turquoise.

Our Turquoise Pools of Quiet

The shower curtain clips,

I start unhooking them at one end,

You at the other end,

Some pull open easily,

Others stay stubbornly closed.

I leave those for you to try.

Yesterday, you washed the dishes

So I’d have a spoon for my cereal.

We need more spoons,

We can use all the ones we have

In a day, sitting in the grey sink,

Some days we need halos,

Plates falling, veils lifting off,

Tools, missing parts in the junk drawer.

I finally got us a tool bag,

Organized the nails, duct tape, dust mask,

Large enough for the hammer on the bottom,

Messages on torn paper.

The filmy shower liner tossed,

We begin attaching the new one,

Unfolding the plastic pleats,

Thread the round hooks through,

Magnets seal them at the sides of the tub,

Porcelain echoes metal.

I often don’t know what to say,

You and the cat never mind

Tim Tracz, a photographer, was kind enough to allow me to choose one of his photos for the cover of my first book, She Took Off Her Wings & Shoes. I tackled the difficult task of making a selection, finally narrowing it down to two photos. To me, they were the ones most mirroring my poetry collection. One photo collage, however, was in a landscape orientation and, unfortunately, wouldn’t work for the portrait orientation of the book’s format.

Still, the collage image with a woman reading in the woods stayed with me.