A man wraps his woman’s back and shoulder 
with his right arm, clasps her flesh 
in her cap-sleeved dress. His tattooed left arm’s 
slung around the pillar bearing the subway sign—
his fingers resting on her wrist—as if 
ballasting his need to get her moving where, 
get her doing what, he wants—though he’d 
have to release her first. Perhaps she’d placed 
her hand on the pillar, refusing to follow him 
down the subway stairs; in any case, that hand’s 
now smothered under his. 

Bending close, he whispers in her ear—
possibly solicitously—though the pressure 
of his arms and hands speaks louder. 
Her glaring face is turned away from his 
while she’s pinned in place, her take-no-prisoners 
lips pressed together. Her left hand, 
at her broad waist, keeps her purse close, 
and her body twists, as if to pull back from him 
where she can. Did she balk, suddenly—
the years of simmer boiling over—
when he started down the steps? 
No, you can’t come home with me 
till you get a job, get off the hooch, 
leave that floozy alone. 

Or is her glower aimed at the photographer 
spying on this public private moment 
of a man’s hands-on attention to a woman, 
turning it into street theater? And is she simply 
chafed at the invasion, standing proudly firm 
with him, not stuck? It’s hard to know. 

So ambiguous is touch—caught between 
control, and love. 

Contrast the man and woman striding by, 
each completely untouched 
by the other—and perfectly in sync! 
Their left arms bend at the elbows: 
he places a cigarette between his lips; 
she brings a fist to her nose—and sniffs? 
Fingers curled against her open palm, 
her right hand gracefully grips 
the handles of her purse; his pinches a lighter 
between fingers and thumb. They both glance 
at the camera: he, somewhat hostile; 
she, guarded and demure—but they move on. 

* The photo referenced in the poem above appears as Slide 29 in Vivian Maier’s Street 1 portfolio at her website: http://www.vivianmaier.com/

Judy Kronenfeld

has five full-length collections of poetry published, including Groaning and Singing (FutureCycle, 2022), Bird Flying Through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths (2nd ed. Antrim House, 2012), winner of the Litchfield Review poetry book prize for 2007. She also has two chapbooks published: Disappeared Down Dark Wells, and Still Falling (The Inevitable Press, 2000) and Ghost Nurseries (Finishing Line, 2005).

Her poems have appeared in Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Connotation Press, Ghost Town, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, Offcourse, One (Jacar Press), Rattle, Slant, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verdad, Your Daily Poem, and other journals, and in more than three dozen anthologies. Her stories are published in The Madison Review, The North American Review, Literary Mama, and other magazines, and her creative nonfiction, in Under the Sun; Hippocampus; Inlandia: A Literary Journey; and elsewhere.

Her most recent story, The Paisley Scarf, was published in The Loch Raven Review (Volume 16, No. 1, 2020) and was nominated for a Pushcart.

Her most recent piece of creative nonfiction, Operating in French, appeared in Kaleidoscope (Number 84, Winter/Spring 2022), pages 14-19.

Ms. Kronenfeld is Lecturer Emerita, Department of Creative Writing at UC Riverside.

Author’s website: http://www.judykronenfeld.com/