Today's poem is by Michael Boccardo

Edward Hopper's 'Seven A.M.', 1948
       

Here, where light refuses
to reach, I stand
subdued. My existence
an interlude. Shade
verses hue. I am afterthought.
Postscript, addendum. One
of Hopper's hidden women.
See how the artist insists
on erasure, absence
over evidence. The way
morning inventories its losses:
shelves untroubled by book
or trinket. A register,
quiet & barren. How lonely
he rendered the window—
a cigar box, photographs.
Bottles the green of battered
waves. Suspended against
the wall: a clock, my vigilant
witness. Picture me, then,
in a cinched belt, cerulean print.
Widowed, newly.
My life a scene unseen.
Undone beneath strokes
of pearl, fists of muted stone.
Even the sky lowers
a veil over trees
bending their bruised throats.
Call me figment. Call me
myth, mirage. My hour
infinite, tethered to shadow.
Hopper's little secret.
If afternoon existed
my truth might have been
a bell weeping
above the solitary door.
Maybe leaves dragged
across the concrete
steps. Or perhaps,
under enough fractured
light, the silver
of a polished revolver,
spent at my feet.

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Copyright © 2023 Michael Boccardo All rights reserved
from Kestrel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission