Clare Rossini

AFTERNOON AT THE METROPOLITAN, NYC
 
Against the mauve wall, a Flegel
 
so pristine,
so guarded against spoilage
 
that, feeling a cough coming on, I have to walk away,
 
take in the Holderlin, the Vermeer, nod
to the drowsing guard. Then back to
 
the split lemon, its wet yellow flesh.
 
The small roasted bird
on a pewter plate.
 
And the goblet, light ghosting its rim as it curves,
 
vanishing toward
some anterior dark
 
not even Flegel could render. But there’s
 
the living bird perched
on the painting’s crusty boule—
 
the signage says it’s a titmouse.
 
Through clouds of varnish,
its eye pierces mine. I pause.
 
Something passes between us.
 
It’s time
to get down those big marble stairs,
 
push open the heavy brass door, find myself
 
in the cold March wind, school kids
yelling on the sidewalk. The hot dog guy
 
hunched by his cart, blowing on his hands.
 
What I see first—really see—
is the can of trash, its overflow
 
studded with bright yellow
 
wrappers. The wad of Daily News,
a plank of dove gray. And the umbrella—
 
one of those cheap ones you get on the street,
 
they never last more than one bad rain—
light catches
on its crushed spindly ribs.
 
The ripped black cloth caught in wind,
flapping. Now suddenly still.

Author: Clare Rossini

Clare Rossini has published three books of poems, the first of which won the Akron Poetry Prize.  She recently co-edited an anthology titled The Poetry of Capital (University of Wisconsin, 2020). Her poems have appeared in publications such as Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, Plume, and Poetry, as well as in many anthologies, including The Best American Poetry series, in which she’s appeared twice, most recently in 2020.  She has received grants and awards from a variety of organizations, including the State of Connecticut, the Minnesota Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, and the Maxwell Shepherd Foundation; she’s also had residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the American Academy in Rome.

Plume: Issue #102 February 2020