Curtains
by Ruth Stone
(published in 100 Great Poems by Women, edited by Carolyn Kizer, 1995,
Ecco Press)
Putting up new curtains,
other windows intrude.
As though it is that first winter in Cambridge
when you and I had just moved in.
Now cold borscht alone in a bare kitchen.
What does it mean if I say this years later?
Listen, last night
I am on a crying jag
with my landlord, Mr. Tempesta.
I sneaked in two cats.
He screams NO PETS! No PETS!
I become my Aunt Virginia,
proud but weak in the head.
I remember Anna Magnani.
I throw a few books. I shout.
He wipes his eyes and opens his hands.
OK OK keep the dirty animals
but no nails in the walls.
We cry together.
I am so nervous, he says.
I want to dig you up and say, look,
it's like the time, remember,
when I ran into our living room naked
to get rid of that fire inspector.
See what you miss by being dead?
I love the movement in this poem, not only how the poem itself moves from the beginning to the ending, but also how nothing is still here, starting with hanging curtains.
The speaker tells us "other windows intrude." Curious--does she mean actual windows or is this a metaphor? The answer is yes. Hanging curtains in this new place reminds her of an old place, and its windows, and that brings back memories of the "you." We will need to assume that the "you" is a husband or a partner.
In those five lines we have gone back in time and to another place. We also learn that the "you" is no longer in the picture. Cold borscht and a bare kitchen tell us by showing that the speaker is not just alone but lonely.
Then there is a one-line stanza. A question. Is it asked of the "you," the reader, or both? I think both. The speaker is telling the "you" she is about to tell us something from their past, and asking what it would matter. But she is also telling the reader that this is what poetry does--it tells us things from the past; put in the form of a question, it is as if Stone is telling us to read on for the answer.
We then jump ahead, but not to the present of the hanging curtains, but the night before. She has brought her two cats to her new apartment and is caught by the landlord. He is described as very animated, but the speaker is not to be outdone. She compares her outburst to her aunt, presumably with dementia, and the great Italian actress Anna Magnani, known for playing tragic and often hystrionic women. There is a lot of movement and then release--landlord and renter cry. The landlord makes a tiny confession.
Were you prepared for the next line? "I want to dig you up." Well, that tells us what became of the "you." That stanza ends with the speaker confessing to us, but also reminding the "you" of a memory from their past (in that Cambridge apartment in winter, most likely). We learn that the speaker has channeled Aunt Virginia and Anna Magnani before, and the image is a vivid one (and again, lots of movement).
Another one-line stanza, another question. We end with some bittersweet humor, the kind of humor born from grief. And all of this from curtains.
A stanza of just one line are called a monostich.
A poem addressed to a person, being, or thing who/that cannot respond is called an apostrophe.
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