Like a painting by a Dutch artist,
\nVermeer or Rembrandt.
\nVan Gogh: \u201cThe Turnip Eaters.\u201d
\nThey pause, motionless, a tableau<\/p>\n
in the dark apartment. Outside,
\nthe street is an unlit hallway.
\nThe tall lamps hang their heads
\nlike tired horses.<\/p>\n
Inside, the unseen wallpaper
\nis soft against the walls.
\nThe room swims in darkness.
\nA man, a woman, a girl.<\/p>\n
At home all day, they have been shy
\nwith each other, unused to idleness.
\nThey have read the paper, talked
\na little. Now the woman stands<\/p>\n
at the stove, one burner on,
\na blue water lily of light.
\nIn the pot, the stew is rich and black.
\nThe man sits at the table,<\/p>\n
his hands open like gray gloves.
\nThe girl lifts a dish and light
\nlicks its edge like a tongue of oil.
\nShe passes the dish to her mother.<\/p>\n
The woman fills it with the black stew.
\nThe man lifts his spoon like a beacon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was ten, you were none.
\nYou were red and warm
\nas a loaf of meat, and
\nsomebody had bandaged you,
\nlike a wound. I sat inside
\nthe black teepee of my hair
\nwith you in my arms. Your
\nparents weren\u2019t your
\nparents, that was for sure.
\nYou were from another world.
\nYour eyes were dark
\nand unfocused, like sapphires.
\nSome one is going to hurt you,
\nI whispered, but I won\u2019t let them.<\/p>\n
____________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n
KATHERINE HOLLANDER’s poems and criticism have appeared in or are<\/strong> GENERAL STRIKE, BERLIN 1920 Like a painting by a Dutch artist, Vermeer or Rembrandt. Van Gogh: \u201cThe Turnip Eaters.\u201d They pause, motionless, a tableau in the dark apartment. Outside, the street is an unlit hallway. The tall lamps hang their heads like tired horses. Inside, the unseen wallpaper is soft against the walls. The room […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3755,"featured_media":0,"parent":9,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":483,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/312\/revisions\/483"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n forthcoming from AGNI Online<\/em>, Pleiades<\/em>, Salamander<\/em>, Sugar House Review<\/em>,<\/strong>
\n Verse<\/em>, and others. She holds a master’s degree in creative writing<\/strong>
\n from Boston University, where she is now a PhD student in European<\/strong>
\n history, and has enjoyed residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and<\/strong>
\n the Brecht House in Denmark. Her manuscript, ‘My German Dictionary,’<\/strong>
\n was a finalist for the Four Ways Books Intro Prize and in 2009, she<\/strong>
\n won the Schmuel Traum Prize in Literary Translation for her work with<\/strong>
\n the poetry of Else Lasker-Sch\u00fcler. She is now working on a libretto for a<\/strong>
\n composer at the University of Oregon.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"