"The New York School of Beauty" [by Mary Maxwell]

The New York School of Beauty

The man who cut James Schuyler’s hair also cuts my hair.
I once heard Schuyler read at the Ninety Second Street Y.

A large man, he sat at a wooden table positioned center stage
and took highly dramatic gulps of water between the reading
of his dead-pan poems.

                                           Carrying my postpartum weight,
I trudge behind my child’s stroller up Hudson Street past
Saint Luke’s and then over to the White Horse Tavern.

I find myself thinking of him, identifying sequentially with
the poet’s size, his last-ditch Episcopalianism, his thirst.

from Cultural Tourism by Mary Maxwell (LongNookBooks, 2012). James Schuyler is pictured above.

Comments

[Suzanne Lummis]

Oh nice, I like this -- slightly droll, rather tender.

[Shannon Holman]

I felt so lonesome and then I read this.