Poem by Louise Glück

Portrait

A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing; she has cut
one background from another. Like a child,
she turns to her mother.

And you draw the heart
against the emptiness she has created.

1. Visitors from Abroad
2. Celestial Music
3. The Fear of Burial
4. Archaic Fragment
5. Odysseus' Decision

Eliza Acton Portrait ("The second, with a brow serenely calm")

Print

1726 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version