Waiting for Someone
—Edward Hopper, Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 1925-1930
Dark gray suit, dark green tie, dark
blue shirt curling at the collar tips.
No unfinished business
propped on an easel, no gunky palette
in hand or handful of brushes
left to soak in a jar of murky turpentine.
Just this pale, clean-shaven man
who might be anyone—
a reporter or encyclopedia salesman or
the weary guy hunched at the lunch counter
you see every day without seeing—
which must be the point. Maybe he
has put so much of his breath, his sight,
his memory, his muscle, even
the tip of his chin into the work that this
is what’s left. A time-worn face
grown ghostly, forgettable (though here
it is), shadowed by a brown fedora—
he must be headed out. But look
how he has turned back, mouth set, eyes
intent, eyebrow slightly raised. He’s waiting.
Have you ever waited for someone
to speak, waited so long to hear something
that you almost can’t remember what
it was, though for years you’ve kept time
by its absence, that little hole
in the air? The wall behind him is
a white so beautiful it’s almost light green,
a bare wall that makes this feel like
one of his rooms filled with emptiness,
except he’s here, still waiting, not alone
because he’s looking at you.
