The loneliness thing is overdone.
—Edward Hopper, about responses
to his work
Except for shoes
the young woman is naked,
in a chair, looking out
a fully opened window,
her face obscured
by dark brown hair.
Apartment? Hotel?
Outside, the obdurate gloom
of city buildings.
It’s 11 A.M.,
Hopper’s title says,
time for her to have dressed
a hundred times.
And it’s the shoes which hint
of her desire to dress,
and of some great impediment.
Elbows on knees. Hands clasped.
The window she’s leaning toward
is curtainless.
There’s no sense she cares
she might be seen, or
that she wishes to show herself.