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End of the Day on Second
Antioch Review, The, Wntr, 2004 by Dorothea Tanning
END OF THE DAY ON SECOND Her husband, traveling for his company, is rarely home. Alone, she keeps herself to herself except for the stores. Once past their revolving doors those mouse-gray webs of thought that hang around her head like crape soon lose their grayness; give way to garlands of things, new things, needed things. She is quick of step, clear of eye, purposeful. Seven floors of exhilaration await her. Escalator bound, she hardly pauses to touch a faux-fur something whish, like all else blazing in its newness urges invitation from every counter, every aisle: "Touch me, open me, feel me, turn me over, unzip me, try me on read my label, my price-tag, touch me, oh touch me...." Finally, on second, in bras. Bras swarming everywhere, giant pink moths at rest, empty cups clamoring, "Fill me." It's late. Shoppers have left, yet there's time to try a bra. Emerging from the booth, she stands, only half dressed and head down, in aisle five, a bra hanging from her hand. A floorwalker approaches. "May I help you?" She doesn't look up, murmurs, "My husband is away." At this, the kindly floorwalker takes her in his arms, her face hidden on his shoulder. They stand, unmoving, among the mothy bras which might at any moment rise in a cloud and leave them, as I am leaving them now, in their frozen pose, their endless closing time.
DOROTHEA TANNING was born in 1910. Her paintings and sculptures are in numerous museum collections, and her poems have recently appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, and Poetry, among many other magazines and journals. Her first collection of poems, A Table of Content, will be published by Graywolf Press in June 2004.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Antioch Review, Inc.
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