Poetry & Portraits: Look

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Look
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on November 9, 2013]

The altercation takes her by surprise:
same boy, same busy street, same tug-of-war
about authority. Today her eyes,
all by themselves it seems, have shut a door.

Those eyes can wither mountains with their blast,
then scurry back into their burrows, wild
with panic, waiting till the storm has passed.
She sees those same eyes brewing on her child.

Her brows rise up above the thunderclaps –
How could I look at him like that? The dead
are more forgiving – but the mirror snaps
her candor back to irony instead.

She says he won’t forget. She knows he will,
as sudden as the sparrow at her sill.

Copyright © 2013, 2018 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line.