THE ARGONNE HOTEL PRESS CHAPBOOK SERIES

WRAPPED IN LIGHT
Poems by ELIZABETH HAZEN

Girl Dancing • Cemetery in Athens • At the Corner of Andiopis and Spetshon • Mother and Son • Last Evening on the Island of Naxos • Laundry Day • Memory in Yellow • A Different Day • My Grandparents’ Guest Room • Afternoon at the Botanical Garden • Wrapped in Light • On Holding Light • Searching in the Sand • Making Supper • Icarus to Dedalus • Spilt Milk • Author’s Notes

$7.00 US • 36 pages
Copyright © 1995, 1999 Argonne Hotel Press. ISBN 1-88761-04-1
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Girl Dancing

she stares at her hands
as she dances
as if she can see
each movement of her body
in the gentle brush of her fingertips
against the thinness of air.

she looks up when the music stops
to see who has been watching her
dance. she shakes out her hair
and closes her eyes, hugs herself and sighs
as if breathing alone makes her feel sexy,
as if her own touch keeps her warm.

At the Corner of
Andiopis and Spetshon

The afternoon sun rolls over the sidewalk,
making hundreds of shades of white
waver by my feet. The shadows sway beneath
the trees, trying to slip out of a dirty gray.
A marmalade kitten sticks his neck
through the iron bars of a balcony,
just over my head. He meows, stretches
until he catches a glimpse of the street,
then inches back into the shade. By the yellow
trolleys, five gray men sit in metal chairs
around a small table. They shoot Ouzo and tap
packs of Camels on their knees, wiping sweat
from their brows with white
handkerchiefs. Their eyes move as one unit
to watch the swish of a young girl’s
skirt. She saunters by and throws
her head back until her brown curls
brush against her rear.
A man on a motorcycle tears
through the quiet noises of the summer day,
his machine straining to make it up the hill.

I stand by the kiosk, picking through
the different kinds of ice cream, wanting not
to remove my arm from the cool box. A child
taps his foot behind me; his bony knees
are dirty and his black hair
is sculpted with sweat into a ragged heap.

I step away from the freezer empty handed,
tilt my head toward the box
and let the boy take his turn.
The days are long in Athens,
and I have plenty of time to choose.