The Hopper Hooks – A Sequence in Three
1
Hotel
after Habitación de hotel, 1931, by Edward Hopper
She unpacks all that she can fit into a space not hers, these
sheets scented of other skin, that others left while passing.
She undresses before the window pulls a black shade
up against the light of a day at odds with the night of this
room. Sound swims through heat and laughter – too light
for a single weight – forces its way in, a wave-punch in the
gut of all she has swallowed. There are trains in her hands,
times of parting, but all she wants is to sink down, in there,
under the magnolia of a room not hers or theirs. The carpet
is moss and she wonders if it will climb along the skin that’s
grown tired of touch, until she becomes just another stain in
its thread, a disappearance, but for her scent that someone
will find while passing, though it won’t remember her name
https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/hopper-edward/hotel-room
2
Violet Opening
after Automat 1927, by Edward Hopper
A hissing in the corner, serpentine heat slivering beneath a sky
of other unidentified objects refusing her request to abduct. As
she stirs her tea, wormholes open behind her. She did not pack
this time. Things do not travel well on the run. Rings turn to
hooks to hold you back. Concessions in chapels of acceptances
choke later in a bedroom she never knew how to decorate. She
ordered a bowl of fruit to disguise his cologne, still between her
thighs, hissing, snakelike. Unknown to him, it was his last time
in her garden, the violets trembling. Sitting crossed legged, tight
enough to strangle the years she surrendered, wondering how
it might feel, one day, to bring to the tip of her tongue the lips
of a woman. Snakelike. Table for two? the waitress asked, when
she’d entered and she’d said yes, as she’d said yes to everything
for 28 years. Empty chair opposite. Judgements. But she was off, to where she’d no longer be an alien to the want of a woman.
https://useum.org/artwork/Automat-Edward-Hopper-2000
3
Hook
after Sun in an Empty Room, 1963 by Edward Hopper
He locked the door, after she left, after that time she never spoke of
but the disappearance of her scent from the sheets in the days that
followed, twisted itself around the truth of her no return.
He locked the bedroom door, hoping to catch her shadow, particles
of skin that had fallen, a droplet or two of sweat cycle saliva or
one of the many tears he knew she’d expelled in the dark
behind his back after he’d cum & she, while in situ, appeared to
depart. He spied, at times, through the keyhole, how the outside light
slipped in, how it cast a door upon solid wall from the shut window
and he imagined her frame, unfading into focus, coming back
for things she’d left behind like the ring that he hoped would hook.
Wolfpack Contributor: Damien Donnelly
5 poems & interview from Damien Donnelly in Fevers of the Mind Press Presents the Poets of 2020
3 Poems from Damien B. Donnelly writer/host of Eat the Storms Podcast
Fevers of the Mind 