Early Elegy: Headmistress

The word itself: prim, retired, its artifact

her portrait above the fireplace, on her face

the boredom she abhorred, then perfected,

her hands held upward—their emptiness

a revision, cigarette and brandy snifter

painted, intolerably, out, to leave her this

lesser gesture: What next? or shrugged Whatever.

From the waist down she was never there.