In Passing
by Roy Helton
THROUGH the dim window, I could see
The little room—a sordid square
Of helter-skelter penury:
Piano, whatnot, splintered chair.
It is so small a room that I
Seemed almost at the woman's side:
Galled jade—too fat for vanity,
And far too frankly old for pride.
Her greasy apron 'round her waist;
The dish cloth by her on the chair;
As if in some wild headlong haste,
She has come in and settled there.
Grimly she bends her back and tries
To stab the keys, with heavy hand;
A child's first finger exercise
Before her on the music stand.
"In Passing" reminds me of William Carlos Williams' poem about his driving through a suburban neighborhood and noticing a "housewife." I like Helton's poem even better because it transfers the point of view from viewer to viewed. At the end of the poem, we concentrate completely on the woman; the scene's poignant but not sentimental. Amid all the work and in the midst of a hard life, the woman pauses to take a try at playing the piano. Helton's poem amounts to a highly compressed short story.
