The Wilde Woman of Aiken by Robin Coste Lewis

The Wilde Woman of Aiken

     

                     Albumen photograph on Orange Mount

                      J. A. Palmer, 1882

 

I am not supposed to be

beautiful. I am not

supposed to sit

 

before the observant eye

of a sunflower. I am incapable

of having a voice

 

like a robin’s singing

of springtime’s newborn impatiens,

its balsams and touch-me-nots

 

crouched so low to the ground.

Vases and I are not permitted

to dally. If I were a name,

 

it would be Wall

paper. My hair is made

of a million breathing paisleys.

 

For five thousand years,

I have listened to you

think aloud about a world

 

that does now exist.

I am sitting here,

in the open,

 

and you are there, dripping

beneath your dark

velvet, waiting for the light

 

to reach you.

I have wondered

where you really live,

 

why you cannot hear

all the glass inside your syllables

slide off the table

 

whenever your mouth

opens and is then closed.

The story has not even begun.

 

The only thing left inside

my hand is my own

quiet hand. I am the Fourth Sister.

 

My florets stand tougher

as golden angles. My head

is packed with eager seeds

 

crisscrossing in spirals

one hundred garlands long.

It’s over now.

 

About my wait, dark

and bright, there is this

satin sash the color of the sun

 

warmed eggplant

still fetching

on the vine.

 

You

cannot

prevent me.