By definition, an ekphrastic poem is ‘a vivid description of a scene, or, more commonly, a work of art’. The poetry publication Rattle recently honoured me by choosing one of my photographs for their monthly ekphrastic challenge. They posted the image below, titled easy like a sunday morning, and received 468 submissions of poems inspired by the photograph. The editing team then narrowed down the field for a favourite to be chosen, one by the editor and one by me. I felt it a great privilege to read all of them, and a completely daunting task to choose just one. To be sure, it was both fascinating and thrilling to see all the various scenes and stories that could be spun from one singular image. I thought it worth bookmarking the final selections.
This Room by Devon Balwit
He asks to make love, and because he asks, I do,
though my aging desire has turned instead to
the bedside table, to the London Review
of Books, to the now sexier pursuit
of end rhymes and long walks through
leaf-blaze. I’d never thought it true
that the fathomless lust of thirty-two
could silt and still. Now, I must brew
it up if I want it. It’s not you,
I hasten to tell him, unclewing
his anxiety and letting the breeze undo
it. How much earnest whispering this room
has witnessed—plans to make new
life, plans to help failing parents move
to their last dependency, rue
at lost chances, the shy wooing
of new ones—this, too,
what lovers do between the sheets. The view
from the window doesn’t get old, the moon,
and morning peeking in, the bed imbued
with both solemnity and mirth, the glue
that binds us, like two ancient, tangled yews.
STUDY ABROAD by Cassie Burkhardt
His name was Francesco and he was the first boy who ever made me a coffee
the morning after.
I say boy, but he was a million years older than me, wore a suit and worked at a bank in Paris.
I say morning, but it was 2pm
and we had been rolling around in the sheets, windows wide open
for hours and hours, in and out of half-sleep and is it Sunday?
Hair a blonde rumple, pillows gasping for air,
underwear slingshot across the room.
This is love, I thought.
I was twenty.
He was the first boy I didn’t want to forget instantly the next day, no need to slink off
into the terrible sunlight leaking mascara, no,
he made me a coffee,
an actual coffee, a café au lait,
with the bialetti on the stove,
poured it into a bowl as big as my head
or what was inside me holding its breath.
Pour toi, ma belle.
This is what adults do, I thought,
as I tented my fingers around the warm bowl.
I tried to sip it gingerly, make it last, but
it’s hard not to gulp what’s good.
We took another tumble into the bedroom, grabbing and melting into each other’s bodies,
whispering secrets in two languages: j’ai envie de toi, te voglio bene.
It was the first time sex was pleasure and I wasn’t about to hold back.
I am alive, I thought,
and went home wearing his t-shirt, which smelled exactly like clouds
and vibrated like a cello on top of me, which Francesco also played
beautifully I should add here.
He picked me up on his motorcycle whenever we went out
and I have no memory of anywhere we went
because my arms were around his waist and my brain got lost in the
roundabouts, my hair a streak of blonde against woolen coats,
the gray November sky, Paris, my heart,
a pigeon taking flight out of an alley,
buildings illuminated, a blaring siren, the Seine.
On va chez moi? Oui, on y va.
And we were back in the sheets,
his hands cupped around my ass.
I am a woman, I thought,
a desirous, covetous being:
toes, breasts, hip bones, curve of spine on cotton…
I divided him in half with my tongue, a slow line from hip bones to lips
before I undressed him completely and then we switched.
He could taste the hunger in me, could tell I was one wick
and a handful of matches on the inside.
He fed the fire.
He fed it motorcycles, sex
and coffee.
This lasted for exactly two months
until I could tell something had worn off. Quelque chose a disparu.
He wasn’t answering my calls, suddenly very busy. I stared into my Nokia for days.
Finally, I panicked, cut class, showed up at his place in the afternoon unannounced,
knocking furiously at the door.
The room stopped, bows midair.
I had interrupted their string quartet rehearsal, my high heels and halter-top-desperation
oozing all over the salle de séjour like octopus ink.
I am a fool, I thought,
and excused myself to the bedroom,
stared out the big beautiful window at the foot of his bed,
watched the curtains take deep breaths.
Eventually, he came in and sat down quietly beside me
like how you might at church, a funeral.
He handed me a coffee. He didn’t have one.
I smoothed the sheets, held the warm bowl to my chest.
The curtains, caught in midair, were clinging to the wind.
Don’t say anything, I whispered. Please.
Let’s just sit here for a moment and look out the window.
Let’s just look out the window
and watch the curtains float a little longer.