Joseph Harker is the pseudonym of a vagrant twentysomething from the East Coast. When not wandering from city to city an getting into mischief, he writes poems whenever he can. You can see his work in both print and online journals such as Chantarelle’s Notebook, Ganymede, and qarrtsiluni, but it’s easier to find him at his blog. So far, his year has been all right. His most recent poem to appear here was Small Miracles, published as part of Contributor Series 8: Feast and Famine in April 2011.
Elizabeth in Rome, 1962
By Joseph Harker
I imagine her coming off the set of Cleopatra, makeup still
smeared across the lagoons of her eyes.
Maybe the sun is playing the buildings like piano keys.
Old stone glowing red in the late light, and the murmur of the city
our serenade. Maybe we are standing
looking over the rooftops, and she asks a perfect stranger
for a cigarette. I hand one over with shaking fingers and she accepts,
moving it from between two perfect fingers to between two perfect lips
while I strike a match. Even her smoke
dresses elegantly. When the bells begin, she sighs,
the ice in her tumbler of brandy clinking in feeble harmony:
and she says she feels like the Egyptian queen herself, full of
temptations and misplaced love.
In the future, no one will seem so unshakable. Diamond-studded,
queen of the chessboard, the goddess of exquisite taste.
For now though, in this moment that never happened, she is
simply casting her silhouette on the hotel piazza,
antique automobiles turning circles below, mistaking her for some
statue of Juno, so ancient in her youth.
This is a great description of Liz. I saw her when she was married to Senator John Warner. She came to VA Beach to campaign with him. When she looked you in the eye you were under her spell. Well done.
Yes, very well done indeed.