Downtown Zoetrope
- Downtown Zoetrope
When viewed in a certain light,some bodies astonish.
Just as you, passenger, and I mightmarvel at the operator-less subway booths
with their ruined phones, or at the ratsscuttling out their hobo art in the tracks
while a ragged violinist twiddles his thinnessinto a blues. Consider the nearness of the dark
in which two trains caressas they hurtle toward end stations—
frames lit from within and electric as fingertips— so that a rider like you might
flicker in my window (incandescent bonesdoing a rough jig in the strap), and I
might appear in yours (swollen handin which some novel flops), each of us
percussing in our cages of localand express, and why not
hold you before you trestle and spoolinto the day's tender appointment?
The city morning is already punishingyour shoulders and so I keep your image
here and for miles, even as your face ceasesto have a face, even as your body
erases into the terrible light above. [End Page 14]
Susan B. A. Somers-Willett is the author of two award-winning books of poetry, Quiver (University of Georgia Press, 2009) and Roam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006) and a book of criticism, The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2009). Her writing has been featured by several journals, including Iowa Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Poets & Writers, and the New Yorker's Book Bench. Her collaborative documentary poetry series "Women of Troy" aired on PRI and BBC radio affiliates and received a 2010 Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media.
