Document <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <?xml-model href="http://www.tei-c.org/release/xml/tei/custom/schema/relaxng/tei_all.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?> <?xml-model href="http://www.tei-c.org/release/xml/tei/custom/schema/relaxng/tei_all.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LEAF-VRE/code_snippets/refs/heads/main/CSS/leaf.css" title="LEAF" ?> <TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"> <teiHeader> <fileDesc> <titleStmt> <title>Prose Poems for Old Women</title> <author>May Stevens</author> <respStmt> <persName>Eowyn Andres</persName> <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Haley Beardsley</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Lyndon Beier</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Erica Delsandro</persName> <resp>Investigator, editor</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Mia DeRoco</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Margaret Hunter</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Diane Jakacki</persName> <resp>Invesigator, encoder</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Sophie McQuaide</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Olivia Martin</persName> <resp>Editor, encoder (2021)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Zoha Nadeer</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Bri Perea</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Carrie Pirmann</persName> <resp>Editor, encoder (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Valeria Riley</persName> <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Ricky Rodriguez</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Roger Rothman</persName> <resp>Investigator, editor</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Valeria Riley</persName> <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Kaitlyn Segreti</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Maggie Smith</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Maya Wadhwa</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Kelly Troop</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Lucy Wadswoth</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Anna Marie Wingard</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Olivia Wychock</persName> <resp>Graduate Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <funder>Bucknell University Humanities Center</funder> <funder>Bucknell University Office of Undergraduate Research</funder> <funder>The Mellon Foundation</funder> <funder>National Endowment for the Humanities</funder> </titleStmt> <publicationStmt> <distributor> <name>Bucknell University</name> <address> <street>One Dent Drive</street> <settlement>Lewisburg</settlement> <region>Pennsylvania</region> <postCode>17837</postCode> </address> </distributor> <availability> <licence>Bucknell Heresies Project: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)</licence> <licence>Heresies journal: © Heresies Collective</licence> </availability> </publicationStmt> <sourceDesc> <biblStruct> <analytic> <title>Patterns of Communicating and Space Among Women</title> </analytic> <monogr> <imprint> <publisher>HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics</publisher> <pubPlace> <address> <name>Heresies</name> <postBox>P.O. Boxx 766, Canal Street Station</postBox> <settlement>New York</settlement> <region>New York</region> <postCode>10013</postCode> </address> </pubPlace> </imprint> </monogr> </biblStruct> </sourceDesc> </fileDesc> </teiHeader> <text> <body> <pb/> <div> <pb n='84' facs="https://leaf.bucknell.edu/sites/default/files/2025-02/heresies02_84.jpg"/> <head>Prose Poems for Old Women</head> <byline>May Stevens</byline> <lg> <head>SITTING STILL</head> <l>Some people died who never died before she said</l> <l>They died iust now she said readine The Times</l> <l>Her skin was pink her flesh concealed the bones</l> <l>inside She pretended she was a chair</l> <l>hoping death would flash past sat still as a sofa</l> <l>A dress laid over two shoes neatly placed.</l> </lg> <lg> <head>WOMAN WAITING</head> <l>My mother sits at a window watching the field.</l> <l>When I come after six months, a vear, she waves.</l> <l>Moving from chair to bed to table she opens the</l> <l>door to the field, waits to receive words of praise</l> <l>and affection. The days of no figure crossing the</l> <l>field have moved to this moment. We are together.</l> <l>We drive off. She has nothing to say. She is humming.</l> </lg> <lg> <head>ALICE DICK b. NEW BRUNSWICK. CANADA 1895</head> <l>As children in Chatham Alice and her sister Mary</l> <l>went for picnics on a boat down the River Miramichi</l> <l>as far as Bav de Vin and Burnt Church where the boat</l> <l>turned around. They caried sandwiches and lemon</l> <l>meringue pie homemade by Nelle Morn who hooked</l> <l>five or six rugs a vear, took in laundry, baked</l> <l>and sold fresh bread in herstore, made all the</l> <l>familv s clothes and delivered milk to her neishbors.</l> <l>Three of her four children were girls but they never</l> <l>learned to do allthe things their mother did. She</l> <l>had no time to teach them.</l> <l>Alice was in the second grade when Nellie Morn threw</l> <l>a log from the top of the woodpile into Alice's left</l> <l>eye. Her blue dress turned red.</l> <l>Alice was twelve when her father died. She went to work</l> <l>as mothers helper for the Snowballs and the Steeds</l> <l>who lived in the big house on the hill. Thev owned the</l> <l>pulp mill.</l> <l>Later she came to Boston, got a job in a Chinese</l> <l>restaurant where she waited on True N. Stevens half-</l> <l>owner of Stevens and Greene Groceries and his boy Ralph</l> <l>who flirted with her. Asked what A.D. on the bill stood</l> <l>for she said after dinner. They got married. She was</l> <l>twenty-four. I was the first of their two children</l> <l>the one who lived.</l> <l>She is nearly eighty now. She has a pink-gummed smile</l> <l>incredibly innocent and sweet without the least inflec-</l> <l>tion of twenty vears confinement in the back wards of</l> <l>state mental hospitals. The light in the one eye that</l> <l>sees has never gone out.</l> </lg> <lg> <head>OLD WOMAN BATHING</head> <l>Loosened strands slip down deep divided back.</l> <l>Buttocks shelfslides to creasing thighs. Knees</l> <l>keep a partial crouch. Belly slings body center</l> <l>forward over a hairless pouch. She lifts each breast</l> <l>soaping the smell of age. She (matter self-propelled</l> <l>mushrooms pink and lavender, lustful, greedy, feeding)</l> <l>steps into air, hands stroking space, trusting someone</l> <l>is there to towel her drv, pin remnant hair, give back</l> <l>her name, her watch, her storv. She loves being clean</l> <l>but who has time to wash her every day? Is she a baby</l> <l>with a future? She loves hair dresed but fears over</l> <l>handling may make it thin. Dampish stil, flushed,</l> <l>talced, her body blooming, she swings foot, hums</l> <l>nightgowned beside the bed, waits for milk and pills.</l> <l>Glasses folded under pillow, sheet clutched high,</l> <l>one hand slipped between her thighs, she sleeps a</l> <l>sleep she will denv, in tongues converses with</l> <l>familiars, unshareable. No she did not speak she lies</l> <l>keeping her secret garden, loving the long continuous</l> <l>dialog, absorbing, obsessing, warm and sweet as ex-</l> <l>crement newly made, unspeakable, but hers, and real.</l> </lg> <lg> <head>ADDIE, ALICE</head> <l>Aunt Addie went to the hospital for a three day checkup</l> <l>came out with a clean billof health rejoiced at eighty-three</l> <l>ay-yah she savs Maine voice unaided eyes <caesura/> family proud <caesura/>race proud</l> <l>discipline proud <caesura/>straight square proud <caesura/>spareness dryness proud</l> <l>awkward proud <caesura/>truth proud. <caesura/>Addie; <caesura/>You start out with nothing</l> <l>you end up with nothing. <caesura/>My traveling days are over. <caesura/>I</l> <l>remember Souza's band and Burton Holmes' lectures. <caesura/>In fact I</l> <l>heard Winston Churchill telling his experiences in the Boer War</l> <l>the winter of nineteen <caesura/>hundred and one. <caesura/>Making blouses for</l> <l>April <caesura/>pajamas for Ramona <caesura/>distant granddaughters <caesura/>putting up</l> <l>pears for the winter of nineteen hundred and seventy-two. <caesura/>Aunt</l> <l>Addie s house is bare of suffering as her face <caesura/> in which suffering</l> <l>would be an indulgence eves no feling showing <caesura/>asking Maine</l> <l>voice slightly rasped edges <caesura/>knowing but not dwelling <caesura/>what did</l> <l>you expect?</l> <l>In Istanbul a woman of one hundred and one is lifted out of bed</l> <l>into bed <caesura/>mind clear in a crooked cage <caesura/>telling how the sultan</l> <l>was deposed and another came in the palace.</l> <l>Mary had a sister Alice <caesura/>pleasingly plump <caesura/>white calves</l> <l>hairless armpits <caesura/>clear brow <caesura/>still eyes. Alice lost an eye</l> <l>when wood was thrown from the woodpile. <caesura/>Blood ran down her</l> <l>dress. Alice lost a son flu caried him off. <caesura/>Alice lost</l> <l>a daughter who married a Jewish artist. <caesura/>Alice lost a husband</l> <l>when she grew fat and mad. <caesura/>Twenty years after <caesura/>one-eyed</l> <l>burnt-out schizophrenic <caesura/>Alice sees three figures swarm through</l> <l>glass doors <caesura/>daughter <caesura/>husband <caesura/>her husband? <caesura/>son <caesura/>her son? <caesura/>to</l> <l>take her outside. <caesura/>She smiles <caesura/>says well declare <caesura/>gets up</l> <l>goes to the door <caesura/>where coat hat bag <caesura/>are hanging <caesura/>and turns</l> <l>ready.</l> </lg> </div> </body> <back><p> May Stevens is a New York painter.</p></back> </text> </TEI> Document Download Object Type XML document Related Item No
