Resignation, by Eric Colburn

Resignation, by Bertha Wegmann (Denmark) 1890

Resignation

A girl at a table, teacup drained, fat book
open before her, most of it yet to be read.
We can’t quite make out her eyes in her bowed head,
but she seems to have an air, not of one who forsook
the world, exactly, but maybe one who shook
her cares away—or scared them, so they fled…
Her teacup’s empty. She can’t go back to bed.
Her fidgeting fingers have an impatient look…
Nothing about this woman seems resigned!
Determined, maybe. Maybe annoyed. Her lips
are set in a thin, grim, self-certain line,
and her hand on her cheek looks firm—like a foot, perhaps,
that she’s put down. She reads, and we watch her still.
Maybe we’re the ones resigned—to her will.

Eric Colburn

Eric Colburn is a poet whose work has appeared in Appalachia, Blue Unicorn, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and other places. He lives with his family in the Boston area, where he rides his bicycle everywhere, but whenever he drives up to the mountains he stops at the Currier Museum on the way home.