and two more new poems.

By 3/4KYMBERLY TAYLOR.

♦

Alice B. and Gertrude in Their Photographs

Dear T, my sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea,
into our photographs this hard line
of distance, simply! Just between us
and all ours. A photographing
we will go, Basket along, dear pooch
with curlicues. Rue de Fleurus’ garden
dims in the rug-dust; blurred
is the countryside all ahouse! Listen
to the lightness in our in-between.
Even after we’re gone, our blood
will bloom measure by clear
measure thank you little little lens.

◊

Gertrude’s Embryology Class

Plunked in a glass pot with a bit
of ocean and nicely. Leo’s found a
a ctenophore! Hoppy hydra,
clean little keep, I am quite
sick of Quissett Beach, too hot, full
of woodworm, impolite puff.
Scowling, I arrange you on a plate.
Discover other spellings.
Perhaps “fs” all together?
Now that’s done we won’t quarrel.
Nor will we have our solitude.
In each particle of your splendor,
a turn of the stranger.

◊

Alice B.’s Needlepoint Chair

Into my needlepoint is neither opinion
nor small fatherland but Gertrude’s hand,
almost done, the fingers stretching out not
like they do in Picasso’s portrait of her but also
quite like his except more wrist appears; she has rolled
up her sleeve. Paris is dark this winter. Thornton
from the West Indies writes to us,
Care Tuttledue (Dear Two-of-you) and into
my stitches his hibiscus writhe, his ten million
lizards scandal in terribly brief rain
he went walking. Gertrude says countries suffer
from fathers (except the English, they haven’t
got one right now and are more cheerful)
and I read Thorny aloud again
then about a beautiful cake made of nothing
but cream and flour, adding an oh so
to my black border, my long slender needle,
a woman guided, guided away

♦

3/4KYMBERLY TAYLOR received an MFA from Columbia University, studying under Lucie Brock-Broido. She is the author of Extravagant Captivities (Aralia Press, 2005), and her poems have appeared in Boston Review, Hawaii Review, Great River Review, Italian American, Notre Dame Review, Pivot, Seneca Review, Samizdat, among others. Her work most recently appeared in New American Writing (2023), edited by Paul Hoover, and her manuscript Thinandflylingdress was a finalist for the 2023 Cowles Poetry Prize. Taylor is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine. She lives in Maryland where she tends to her flower and herb gardens as well as her small flock of chickens.

Image credits.
“United Airlines, Newark Airport, November 7, 1934.” Photograph by Carl Van Vechten. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, New York Public Library Digital Collections. © Van Vechten Trust. Used with permission.

“Alice B. Toklas: Gertrude Stein, on the Terrace at Bilignin, June 13, 1934.” Photograph by Carl Van Vechten. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, New York Public Library Digital Collections. © Van Vechten Trust. Used with Permission.

“Gertrude Stein with Basket and Pepe on the terrace of the villa at Bilignin, June 13, 1934.” Photograph by Carl Van Vechten. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, New York Public Library Digital Collections. © Van Vechten Trust. Used with permission.

“Ctenophores.” MBL Embryology Class at Quissett Harbor. Gertrude Stein is in the center in skirt and her brother Leo Stein is holding up specimen. Photograph by Baldwin Coolidge. July 31, 1897. Photograph Collection. Courtesy of Woods Hole Historic Museum.

Louis XVI children’s armchair upholstered with petit point worked by Alice B. Toklas over designs by Pablo Picasso. Green and black. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Courtesy of the Alice B. Toklas Estate.