Expectant
- Expectant
Nights are hardest, the swelling, tight and low (a girl), delta heat,
and that woodsy silence a zephyred hush. So how to keep busy? Wind the clocks,
measure out time to check the window, or listen hard for his car on the road.
Small tasks done and undone, a floor swept clean. She can fill a room
with a loud clear alto, broom-dance right out the back door, her heavy footsteps
a parade beneath the stars. Honeysuckle fragrant as perfume, night life
a steady insect hum. Still, she longs for the Quarter—lights, riverboats churning,
the tinkle of ice in a slim bar glass. Each night a refrain, its plain blue notes
carrying her, slightly swaying, home.
Selected works by Natasha Trethewey:
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• Accounting
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• Beginning
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• Calling His Children Home
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• Closing Time
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• Deedywops
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• Delta Sharecroppers, 1930
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• Expectant
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• History Lesson
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• Hot Comb
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• The House Down the Street
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• Saturday Drive
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• Secular
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• The Four Corners
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• Laying the Waves
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• An Interview with Natasha Trethewey
Natasha Trethewey, a member of the Dark Room Collective, is studying for the Ph.D. in English at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), where she received the M.F.A. in creative writing in 1995. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of periodicals, including The Massachusetts Review, Seattle Review, Agni, The Southern Review, African American Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Callaloo.
