“Mrs. Ramsey” by Rebecca Ruth Gould
Meaning suddenly suffused
the subway on her way
to pick flowers freshly cut
for her son’s graduation.
She became symbolical,
a representation
lingering in London’s dusk
while the onlookers
concluded their business,
closed their shops,
said goodbye to colleagues,
headed home.
The concentration of
wife mother woman left untouched
her mysterious hankering
for solitude.
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Rebecca Gould Artist Statement:
Rebecca Gould is the author of Writers and Rebels: The Literatures of Insurgency in the
Caucasus (Yale University Press, 2016) and the translator of After Tomorrow the Days
Disappear: Ghazals and Other Poems of Hasan Sijzi of Delhi (Northwestern University
Press, 2016), and The Prose of the Mountains: Tales of the Caucasus (Central European
University Press, 2015). Her poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in The
Gettysburg Review, The Hudson Review, Nimrod, The Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner,
Washington Square, and Tin House (Open Bar). Her current activities include advocating for
for a non-heteronormative social order.
