FIRST LIGHT
After Robert Motherwell’s Two Figures She’s let the landlord enter, whose snaggle of metal teeth had plucked the glass peephole from the door as if it was an eyeball. His enormous beer belly violates
the portal, blots out everything except a thin shaft of light filtering in from
the hallway window, where she’s often paused to consider flight in a gossamer dress slipped from the ochre wall behind her. She’d launch herself out over the river, before her own man returns from the bar to discover she’s stashed the rent money.
The super pushes; the lock falls in place. She leans forward into what must be done.
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING January 2022 Celebrating 12th Anniversary
