Self-Portrait

Maisie Bilston '22

I am the yellow light that pools in the corners of hollow houses

Slips and slides, sweet honey on polished empty floors.

I am your reflection in the mirror in the hallway -

Your hair dampened by the rain, clinging to your face,

Shaken by the voice that thunder speaks in.

I am the sound of silent things.

I am a thousand names -

I am Calypso knitting by the fireside, golden loom long left behind

Slippers and cigarettes and ashes and dust.

I am Cassandra in the laundromat, short blond hair, brown-eyed girl

Tough tongue, cheap gum,

Fast-fading visions in the whirling washing-mashine.

I am Calyspso - I am Cassandra - I am Cain in the mirror on long and lonely nights.

I have no name.

What angel? You asked me yesterday

(For you did not see the man with the leather briefcase -

You did not see him grin, all teeth, Blue Danube eyes

Veined hands, rough hands trembling

With the weight of a ballpoint pen, ink like oceans)

What angel, you asked, hearing not the beating of invisible wings

Seeing only a trail of rumpled feathers in the dirt, Jacob wrestling

With the man in the looking glass

Oh, what angel? You asked me yesterday

I tell you, Look, the rain beats down on foggy nights,

December nights, like rivers in the concrete

Of the concrete city.

What angel? Some have rumpled wings, but I - I have no answer, but to say

That one December night I saw Joni Mitchell paving paradise,

Singing something low and sweet, the hard songs of California, an unstrung guitar.

Yes: I have no name, but I will be Cassandra, chewing gum in dusty cars

With oceans glinting on the sidewalk I will hear

The sirens singing, sirens calling, sirens flashing by on limp hot days

That smell of rust and oil.

And I will be, one falling summer day,

Calypso in her rocking-chair,

Will know zwei südlichere Tage more, will say

I can hear the kettle crying, time for tea, oh, my Mother,

The bright day is done.

So commanded, I look up, knowing as I do that I am not

A thousand names, that I am but one,

Calypso and Cassandra, Cain in the mirror and Jacob in the looking-glass

So commanded, I speak:

I have, of course, no answer, but to say

That I am Joni Mitchell paving paradise in the honeyed light

Of dawn, the hollow dawn from the very beginning -

So commanded, I so command:

The hard bright day is done.

Good God, I am the sound of silent things.

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Self-Portrait

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