Edward Hopper's Automat, 1927
an ekphrastic poem inspired by my favorite painting
The woman cradles her cup with a bare
hand, the other gloved in black silk, matching
her black-furred collar, her fur-trimmed sleeves.
The automat hums with the fly-buzz of electric light:
all sealed
until a pack of giggling girls push
open the glass door, spill
into summer’s embrace—
a breeze twists through the drape
of the woman’s coat. Sultry and warm.
Then sealed back up again,
buzzing, a blessing.
I never saw you
after I scratched my initials a thousand times
into our divorce papers. But what did I expect?
I hang this painting (not even a painting—
just a print) in my new dining room,
which is not even a room—just a table
where I too sit alone under the bowl
of a chandelier whose light
draws me to uncertain shelter.
writer's note
Edward Hopper's Automat is part of the Des Moines Art Center permanent collection. I'm from Des Moines and so, after years of visiting it on school trips and with my parents, this painting along with others in the Art Center's collections, feels like it's burrowed deep into my internal geography. Alain de Botton, in an article for the Tate Modern blog, describes its magic best:
"It’s a curious feature of Hopper’s work that although it seems concerned to show us places that are transient and un-homely, we may, in contact with it, feel as if we have been carried back to some important place in ourselves, a place of stillness and sadness, of seriousness and authenticity: it can help us to remember ourselves."