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Naomi read the poet’s books before enrolling. She attended his readings and talks, but never spoke. An entourage of young men, future poets, closed around him after each lecture. Of course he wouldn’t recognise her as a future poet. She hadn’t published.
Then she did get an acceptance. Her advisor was delighted to hear the news. He asked to see more of her work and then proposed that Naomi do an independent study with the poet. They could meet regularly over the semester and at term’s end, Naomi could turn in a body of work as a creative thesis. The advisor set this up. The poet, though he didn’t have to, agreed. Maybe he had noticed her published poem.
In the spring, Naomi carried a folder of work down the English Department hallway. She timed this to coincide with the poet’s office hours, but he was out. She nestled the packet into his mailbox. A week later, she arrived at his office hours again. Yes, he said, excavating the folder from beneath a stack of books and flipping through the pages. She should give him a week or so to read the poems and then they would get to work. He would email her the day and time.
The supportive advisor invited Naomi to university things. At book launches, Naomi watched as the poet joked with his entourage, introducing them to important people. She stood aside not knowing what to do with her hands.
The poet never sent that email. He never spoke to her either. Instead he began to stare. Naomi felt his eyes on her in the corridor. When they gathered for department socials, the cup missed her lips if he looked at her. Tea dribbled onto her dress. Then it seemed like the windows of the university itself watched her whenever she crossed the courtyard. She came to doubt the importance of her one acceptance.
The semester waned and still Naomi waited for feedback on her work. She began to panic over the independent study and steeled herself to knock at the poet’s office door. He told her not to worry, found her some filing that needed doing.
On the train home, night pitched shadows. Her reflection flashed on the window. Darkness fell across her face like a beard, making her look like the poet—stooped, wary. Under the reflection’s eye, her hip veered into a seat corner as she made for the exit.
One evening, the poet left her dusting his bookshelves. He told her not to worry about the independent study. He would take care of the mark, he said, stepping out. The untouched folder peeked from beneath a stack of forms. As she worked, voices echoed from the courtyard through the cracked window, quieting the traffic sounds that rose and fell like breaths. The poet’s voice chimed in with a line of Shelley.
She found his black notebook lodged between two volumes of poetry. She brought it to the window. She could see the poet below with his entourage drawn around him in the dusk while being assured of her own invisibility. Reading, she found herself trapped on the page, perpetually tripping and spilling. An ungraceful creature, according to the book, in need of a good seeing-to.
Behind her, a light came on in the corridor. Her reflection met her eye on the window. You’re ugly, it said.
About Marcella O'Connor
Marcella O’Connor is currently writing a dissertation on Elizabeth Bowen at University College Cork. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Zymbol, Ambit, Cyphers and Crannóg.
