Girl on a Hill, by Frances Boyle

Girl on a Hill, by Prudence Heward (Canada) 1928

 Girl on a Hill
 
She won’t make nice for the watcher. Her dirty feet,
soles exposed, appear large as her head. She sits
before a window or temple ruin. I  peer closer:
its verticals are not jambs or columns but tree trunks. 
Branches link overhead, smoky tendrils dark 
 
on the shadow side, with her smoothed-back 
flapper hair. And her face, steady half-profiled gaze, 
eyebrow lilt, stroke of cheekbone. Her full mouth 
uncurved, unsmiling. Bitchy resting face they’d call it
today. Unlike me, she can resist the expectation
 
for a primate fear-grin that telegraphs I’m harmless, 
I submit, don’t kill me. Some see her as wary, others
as brooding, ominous. Sure in her body, with an ease 
I envy, her motion arrested only by her own 
volition, her twinning with the tree. Her body
 
outlines one side of the opening, bends at her waist
and elbow mirror where bark meets level ground. 
Heward made her girl a caryatid, supporting 
the hazy arch of evergreen. Her head-tilt 
matches the tree-limb’s lean. To me, her neck
 
seems gilded, arm glazed. The artist’s oils
emulate not marble but supple muscled flesh, 
swathed and bare. Cant of hip beneath deep 
red drape of velvet, or perhaps nubbled jersey. 
Loose at waist, at bust for dancer’s ease, 
 
dancer’s movement in the world—solid, rooted, 
confident, not currying favour. I seek to feel 
through fabric that black earth, slightly damp,
to sense the yield of needle-bed against my left haunch 
and thigh, along my bare calf, the top of my toes
 
where they press the ground. Can I hear the river,
feel the wind that blurs the trees, the imprint 
of dirt on my naked soles? The Laurentians
beyond, clouds piling up blue upon them. Her
uncompromising regard, green leaves 
sprouting succulent at her feet.
 
Frances Boyle

This poem first appeared in Vox Viola Literary Magazine. This version is from the author’s collection, Openwork and Limestone (Frontenac House, 2022).

​Frances Boyle is a prairie-raised, Ottawa-based writer. She is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Openwork and Limestone (Frontenac House, 2022) as well as Seeking Shade, a short story collection (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2020) and Tower, a novella (Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2018). Frances’s recent/forthcoming publications include The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, The Honest Ulsterman and Ink Sweat & Tears. Formerly a long-time editorial team member at Arc Poetry Magazine, she is now a board member of The League of Canadian Poets and VerseFest, Ottawa’s poetry festival. For more, visit www.francesboyle.com and follow @francesboyle19 on Twitter/X and Instagram.