Philip Kobylarz, Starborn, Photograph
From a Hotel Room Window
On a bench a girl drapes her legs over
desire, connecting nerve with nerve. She’s
exposed her heart, but she is young enough
to heal, regrow like a poplar. Yellowed
ginkgo leaves scatter as a man and woman
greet, he throws his albatross span around
her scapulas, pulls her spine close.
Their kiss is a scarlet fall. Their hunger,
slow honey. An older couple walks
through the park like Egyptian cats or
swaying silk drapes, wearing leather and jewels
like flowers timing each other’s blooms.
All around love provisions the body,
and the body roots, reaching for a vein.
_____________
Mistee St. Clair
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
Strength, again, to be found, to be shared. Strength to crisscross the legs over desire, build connections, regrow, heal. Strength to hold each other, to pull close in the storm of leaves of another scarlet fall, together. Strength to grow old and age in unison to become pure movement past.
We see the scene from afar, from a hotel window. Tomorrow we will warm ourselves in another bed; tomorrow, we will take the road for which we will need strength. For now, we can recharge our batteries by witnessing this love provision, and profusion, City Park, at its best.
Review by Erin Wilson
In Mistee St. Clair’s “From a Hotel Room Window,” a poem born from a brick, mortar and glass setting, from a place of commerce even (a hotel), the poem pleasantly surprises with nature in one of its earliest metaphors, “She’s / exposed her heart, but she is young enough / to heal, regrow like a poplar.” Immediately, in the next line, “Yellowed / ginkgo leaves scatter…” with further assurances that the reader is not entirely separated from the natural world, despite considering life through the window of a rented room.
Curiously, when the man and woman meet amidst the scattering leaves, the reader is alerted to more than what the physical eye sees, and rather sees, almost with x-ray vision, the symbolic history of couples, “he throws his albatross span around / her scapulas, pulls her spine close.” But again, rather than being divorced from nature, their relationship is of nature, “Their kiss is a scarlet fall. Their hunger, / slow honey.” After all, are we not housed within the architecture of our personal stories and our own bones?
The last couple to be introduced is the oldest couple in the poem, “An older couple walks / through the park like Egyptian cats or / swaying silk drapes, wearing leather and jewels / like flowers timing each other’s blooms.” Let me stop for a moment with pleasure and deep envy to consider this metaphor. A great length of history (the couple like Egyptian cats!) with its affiliations with nature (flowers and blooming) takes the reader’s breath away. “All / around love provisions the body, / and the body roots, reaching for a vein.”
I am quite convinced by the poem, and long to view the world through such a window. And I have, thanks to the author.