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Sweet Romanian Tongue

By James Schuyler 1923–1991 James Schuyler

Drew down the curse of heaven on her umbrella

furled and smelling of wet cigarettes,

Jo ran off in rain one pitchy night,

one bloody a.m. found her staring, snoring.

“Why do we all stay up so late?” Jo queried.

“Though I don’t stay up so late as my friends.”

She tripped the little bomb of wasps.

They got her.

Tears for Jo, four, each perfect, waspish.

A silver tongue and piss-blond hair

decants a funeral oblation for the mouse.

“She was a rare sight, a winning wonder.

Jo cultivates her toothaches elsewhere.”

Source: Poetry (November 2009).

Biography

Pulitzer Prize winning poet James Schuyler was a central member of the New York School. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and spent his teen years in East Aurora, New York, before attending Bethany College in West Virginia. During World War II, Schuyler served on a destroyer in the North Atlantic and remained in the US Navy until 1947. Before moving to New York in 1950, Schuyler lived for two years on the Isle of Ischia in Italy . . .

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