I tell you that I see her still <br />At the dark entrance of the hall. <br />One gas lamp burning near her shoulder <br />Shone also from her other side <br />Where hung the long inaccurate glass <br />Whose pictures were as troubled water. <br />An immense shadow had its hand <br />Between us on the floor, and seemed <br />To hump the knuckles nervously, <br />A giant crab readying to walk, <br />Or a blanket moving in its sleep. <br /> <br />You will remember, with a smile <br />Instructed by movies to reminisce, <br />How strict her corsets must have been, <br />How the huge arrangements of her hair <br />Would certainly betray the least <br />Impassionate displacement there. <br />It was no rig for dallying, <br />And maybe only marriage could <br />Derange that queenly scaffolding - <br />As when a great ship, coming home, <br />Coasts in the harbor, dropping sail <br />And loosing all the tackle that had laced <br />Her in the long lanes... <br /> I know <br />We need not draw this figure out <br />But all that whalebone came for whales <br />And all the whales lived in the sea, <br />In calm beneath the troubled glass, <br />Until the needle drew their blood. <br />I see her standing in the hall, <br />Where the mirror's lashed to blood and foam, <br />And the black flukes of agony <br />Beat at the air till the light blows out.<br /><br />Howard Nemerov<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-only-am-escaped-alone-to-tell-thee/
