Poetry of Issue #7        Page 34

The Woman in White

who escaped from a London asylum
is seen wondering alone down a London road—
entangled in disguises, she’s been taunting us
for over a century. Another woman,
a poet, began to wear white
coming out only in poems afterwards;
people began following her down a maze
of paths between lines to catch a glimpse
others have disputed, where, when
for over 150 years. The woman in white
whose face has now morphed into others
stares out at us from paintings, is ultimately
neither Wilkie Collins’ woman*, nor the poet,
but our own image: in the white heat of summer’s close
facing the inevitability of winter, we defiantly
hold parties dressed in baptismal white

*Reference to Wilkie Collins’ titled novel

  Linda Lerner