In her own words...
"Sequestrienne"
2002
Don't look at me
for answers. Who am I but
a sobriquet,
a teeth-grinder,
grinder of color,
and vanishing point?
There was a time
of middle distance, unforgettable,
a sort of lace-cut
flame-green filament
to ravish my
skintight eyes.
Heaven's motes sift
to salt-white — paint is ground
to silence; and I,
I am bound, unquiet,
a shade of blue
in the studio.
If it isn't too late
let me waste one day away
from my history.
Let me see without
looking inside
at broken glass.
for answers. Who am I but
a sobriquet,
a teeth-grinder,
grinder of color,
and vanishing point?
There was a time
of middle distance, unforgettable,
a sort of lace-cut
flame-green filament
to ravish my
skintight eyes.
Heaven's motes sift
to salt-white — paint is ground
to silence; and I,
I am bound, unquiet,
a shade of blue
in the studio.
If it isn't too late
let me waste one day away
from my history.
Let me see without
looking inside
at broken glass.
About this work
“Sequestrienne” was first published in Poetry, Vol. 180, no. 1 (April 2002), p. 18, and included in A Table of Content, 2004, p. 58. It is also included in Dorothea Tanning's book, A Table of Content: Poems, New York: Graywolf Press, 2004, p. 58, and may not be reprinted without the publisher's permission.
J. D. McClatchy recorded a reading of this poem on April 17, 2015.
