Looking In at Night

By Mary Kinzie b. 1944 Mary Kinzie

Asleep, alive, her shape makes me afraid.

Afraid to lose what lasts a little while—

A curl of light along her shoulder blade,

One elbow up but the round ear in shade,

Mouth serious, eyes inward in denial

Of waking life—her shape makes me afraid.

She is like a statue they’ve displayed,

A maiden’s (from the porch), with her unseeing smile.

Light is sketched along her shoulder blade

And weaves around her head like waves of braid,

Suggesting hair in an archaic style,

Asleep-alive. Her shape makes me afraid,

Every year the marble more decayed,

The lines less clear. Time starts its slide,

Curling the light along her shoulder blade

Then rubbing out the features we have made

To take the wing and numbers from the dial.

Alive in sleep her shape turns, unafraid,

Drawing the night along her shoulder blade.

Source: Drift (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003)

Biography

Honored as a teacher and critic, Mary Kinzie has published several collections of critical essays as well as poetry. She has an MA from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and a PhD in English from Johns Hopkins University. Her collections of poetry include Autumn Eros and Other Poems (1991), Ghost Ship (1996), Drift (2003), and California Sorrow (2007). In 2008 Kinzie received the Folger Shakespeare Library’s O.B. . . .

Continue reading this biography