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.

Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight Of Her, published by Eyewear Publishing (2020). He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the Open University. He is also currently finishing a PhD in Creative Writing, on the ekphrasis of modern and contemporary art, supervised by Jane Yeh and Siobhan Campbell.