Bag Lady of Sutton Place, The

American Poetry Review, The, Jan/Feb 1997 by Weiss, Renee, Weiss, Theodore

In her crammed-up apartment on the 19th floor,

the sun, sparked off the river, squints

through grimy panes.

Calling "Play,"

back-hand, from her wheel-chair, she twirls

the ball to any catcher dares to visit.

Then, wheeling and dealing, "Foul! Most foul!"

she keeps the score:

at what hour this one failed to honor her,

on which corner that one snatched

the precious thought she first conceived,

who cashed in on her dead husband's art,

who stole the scene in which she saved the day.

Soon, soon, as time must tell,

she plans to bring these culprits to the bar.

Close by, books loading down the couch, on

grandstand chairs and dance-legged tables

the News--its crowded days still to be reviewed-

lies moldering.

On buckled shelves

the Olds collect their sacred dust:

Chinese horsemen and Aztec masks,

stuck in their local time, snubbing

upstart portraits darkening the walls.

Like the couch, time, sprung, sinks

into itself.

But Time is being called.

Knowing her own true worth, like theirs,

these paintings, dishes, porcelains, silver,

vases that must be sold,

"Not now!" she cries. "But soon, soon.

Exactly when the time is right."

For how can she abandon them, her courtiers,

her servitors? They keep her regal place intact;

they circulate her always-bluer blood.

After editing the Quarterly Review of Literature for more than fifty years, Renee and Theodore Weiss's writing poems together is surprising only in being so belated. They have been giving joint readings around the world. Their poems have appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, and elsewhere. Renee Weiss, a professional violinist, has produced three children's books and a biography of David Shubert. Theodore Weiss's fourteenth volume, a Selected Poems, was recently published.