patrick wright

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

after Francesca Woodman

To return in autumn

is to hide behind a fireplace

slip under a sheet of wallpaper.

I twirled nude through rooms

lived for the lens of a Yashica reflex.

Since adolescence

I used a mirror to see between my legs.

I preferred a single shot:

to blur a trace of the subject.

I wore damask like a shroud.

The aperture:

a whirlpool through which I could fall.

I drowned

& caught bubbles as they escaped my lips.

In Rome

I spent too long studying a stain under an architrave.

I never came back.

My arms held out in front of me like a somnambulist.

I’d hang myself

from lintels in cruciform pose. I never had a house

to haunt.

I was the true Baroque. I’d wander up a staircase

like Nosferatu

play hide-and-seek till the boyfriends left me.

I adored puppets:

how they swung.

My immurements

made me believe in magic.

The house devoured me.

I’m seeing the after-image.

How I clipped on angel wings

till the answer appeared.

Here I am in pages.

Here I am

Penelope

reweaving her tapestries.