Native Woman

By A. F. Moritz b. 1947

Her hair back from the wide round face

flows, almost a girl’s, so thick,

caught back in combs, racing

and curling through them with blackest

vigor, although it is pure white.

Cracked face, dusk-colored: not red

but with a deep red struggling under

the coming night. The eyes shift quickly,

the subway train jerks and rattles,

green vinyl, light flickering, silver poles.

Eyes driven from ancient calm,

which may fear but is never frantic

and says nothing, such as looks out

from the old Indian portraits—calm is

the one thing missing from the beauty

of her face in the black window.

Those unresting eyes there

talk plainly: there’s no money

at home, men young and old go wrong,

life almost at its end is

still day by day harried and perplexed.

Source: The Ruined Cottage (Wolsak and Wynn, 1993)

Biography

A.F. Moritz (Albert F. Moritz) is the author of more than 15 books of poetry; he has received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Relit Award (for Night Street Repairs, named the best book of poetry published in Canada in 2005), an Ingram Merrill Fellowship, and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. A Canadian citizen, Moritz was born in Ohio and moved to Canada in . . .

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