Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
Family PortraitLeo Grudsky
T
Rigidly framed within its final thought.
Emerging from straight dresses like round flowers in a pot,
Stare ahead wonderingly into a queer mist,
Whose changing shapes they need not fathom.
She sits like someone suddenly blank
Before an unheard command.
Her legs, standing apart, do not know where they converge.
Her wandering lines have all halted a moment,
Like vague stray dogs, pausing along a street.
In his eyes is the peace of a blind man,
Whose unseen face scowls fiercely,
With his hands gripping hard surfaces.
Worn like a kitchen knife to almost nothing,
Has gathered them all
Within the wrinkled labyrinth of her compassion.