Found: Louise, as Ekphrasis

At her aunt’s house

in Portchester roaming

the Jersey meadows

after flowers, she felt

something pulling

at her frock, looked

down and saw what

she thought was a cotton-

mouth moccasin

hanging to the hem.

She kept on walking,

looking at the snake,

until finally it dropped off.

She thought      a mate might be

in the vicinity, so she walked

quickly until     out

of the marsh.              We used to walk

in the flower garden where

the paths between cornflowers,

phlox, snapdragon, and verbena

were just as they’d been

when Louise was a child.

She used to look at those fields

stretching into more fields, fields

of whole days rambling

there, coming home with

daisies, buttercups, wild

roses tied up with cinquefoil.

She had good fortune

in her feeling of space.

I asked if she had ever had

an imaginary playmate.

No, she was only

looking at things.

She always had a room alone.

The view of her bedroom

window was over the city,

the Lexington Avenue

apartment was on rising

ground, stretching away

like the fields uptown

and down; it gave

an awareness

of the New York sky.