Photograph: Alice Allgood Cooper on Her Wedding Trip, and: Cotton Block, and: First Eclogue

Photograph: Alice Allgood Cooper on Her Wedding Trip¹

Trion Factory, Georgia, 1888

I've heard humility called the true knowledgeof self, as we are flawed—and as for me, I trembledlike a one-winged bee when I was loosed intowedlock. Watch my portrait's power to compose—there's nothing I want more than to languishin this threshold of not having to explain, thatflush of feeling, pure hush before a name. Awarenessis an intoxicating tool, I find. I have no questionsI can't ask. Here is the wake of wonder: everywhereI see's my stage, ornate, these heavy claws that gripthe mirror, flower-carved columns, my travelinggown a spill of textile: my dowry's an industryI wear on me, folded into white. It flows overthe wicker chair I lean in lightly, as if a throne'sa thing I can lift off from, leave behind. For himI've darkened doubt out from around my eyes,gray jasper set in kohl: darting gifts in my trousseau.For him I willow-bow my spine. My cuts take soundlessroot. These dogwood branches on the windowsill—they'remy touch, stemming freshly. In my spell I am suspended,seamed into soft-drawn letters I've just learned. Is thisthe floating feeling when you've come into love?My world in sweet proportion with another? My righthand heats in its long kidskin glove, my left hand drawsout slender, bare—the honest wrongdoing, this handthat you can see, curving toward me.

Cotton Block²

It's the first avenue downtown   it's a barbeque joint huskingthe bend by the bridge   it's a filling station   it's white paintflecking off brick   it's a sidewalk paraded by   the girlsin white dresses grip crisp stems   it's they are wearing it's

standing on bales stacked   five high   it's heavying bollsblossom into spindle wheels   it's unsung hands   it's uppingbranches like flags   it's an empty grocery   it's & Sons it'sa bicycle shop   it's very expensive bicycling   it's cottoning

on   it's a back parking lot   it's a white flag   it's history's glyphpsychic notches   it's I spilled in the backseat   of David's Jeepit's eighteen   it's first   floodground   it's where all three rivers riseit's mutual commerce   it's vested labors   it's blind traffic gliding by

the cemetery base   it's bur & locks bulging   into my leavingit's untended & keeps   growing   it's blanched cement   it's officesupply   it's dry   it's a native promontory paved   it's blood theftit's flatbed pallets axled   it's steamboats bumping   it's up the river

banks   it's the belts   carriaging the cotton down   it's intactbrick building blocks   it's spokes spooling   it's every balerolled up   it's haze steam windows   it's the antique marketI pick through   it's where I've floated over   its distant floods

First Eclogue³

VOICEBut now you ask me, what am I to think of this myself?Enough, then, enough. Have instead the daylilies in our fieldstarring curvilinear, their orange mouths' awe. Have the barnonce raised for me, now in decay, that finds itself still wood.Do you see what I see? Do you know how you desire me?

VOICEYes I know that I am hearing you but this is both possibleand not possible. I can't touch all that I've sensed in thisdream space. I can never remember your words after youhave left. This seems to be the problem of your messages—I'm still stuck here in the waiting daisies.

VOICEThis is darkness, simple as nothing that I can't answer.You can know, though I am not telling you because it must beknown. You generate your flower-thought and recollect your flood.The landscape you are...