Cate Furey
Rosalie
she came to art / or it found her / late / as if there is a right time /
in the hills around the Observatory / while her husband and the
other husbands worked and obsessed on patches of sky / and wives
worked and obsessed on patches of polished floor, clean dishes and
views out of shining windows / who was that driving up the hill in
the dust? /
she was transfixed by the way grasses would wave in the breeze and
parrots would spark and break the sky / she collected objects like a
bird / broken beehives abandoned show dolls playbills bottles
wooden crates corrugated iron / she collected like someone
wanting to hold on to something her very own / something to be
cut and measured and jammed together in unexpected ways / to
make a satisfying whole /
the others wondered what she was doing / how odd, to not be
content / with buying a new thing and watching for cars coming
up the road /
she was used to a different place green / luscious / what a shock to
land here on a weathered hill just hoping that someone might likeyou / remember your name / see things the way you do / look at
this and see / how when this curve is nestled here / against this
straight / the connection buzzes and fills a spot / that you didn’t
know was empty /
— For Rosalie Gascoigne (1917-1999)
