About Crows

Summertime (1943)

42 Su mm ertim e (1943) Although I don’t detect the slightest breeze by looking at you, I can see the wide outline of your right thigh (even the faint hue of flesh mixing with the almost-blue of your dress) as you stand on the cement steps and wait, for whom? Screenless and open over your right shoulder, the shade half-drawn on the lives inside mirrors the hat brim casting a shadow over your eyes. The first-floor window looks out onto a sidewalk with no treebelt, and reflects the noontime sun in such a way it reminds me of Main Street and Liberty, in Springfield, Massachusetts, and of a tale I heard too many times as a child, about my pépé, François, who, when living across from the bus station, used to urinate out of his first-floor living room window while the pigeons pecked at rotten chicken and exhaust clung to tenement awnings; and once, deep into an afternoon drunk, the neighbors left their rain-slicked rubbers out on the sidewalk to dry, and François filled them up. For some reason, the sidewalk around you is completely clean, calling attention to the fact that this is a Hopper painting, not Springfield. Though you do stand perfectly composed in your isolation, the fan on inside the window promises an occupant within. And though your hat may suggest otherwise, there is no slip beneath your cotton day dress, telling me you might be waiting on a man like Frank ...