Hope I
by Marie Trotter
Hope I by Marie Trotter Hope is the pregnant woman that Klimt Painted and you saw on the gallery wall, She stared out at you watching her As you noted her body, round with readiness, The skull above her head like a crown. Her hair was aflame and her eyes Saw you, not the dark figures behind her, Her hands held her world together, Instead of hiding her bare breast. She made herself vulnerable To being seen, she has not covered Herself with the star-dipped fabric Or the tapestry of eyes that, like her, Are watching you, curious. Nowhere in the room can either of us find shame. In her hair she wears flowers – she has adorned Herself with these fragile touches of beauty, All so that she can wait and see.
Marie Trotter is a PhD Candidate in the Department of English at McGill University, researching metatheatre in Shakespearean performance. Her writing can be found in the journals Theatre Research in Canada, Early Theatre, and Literature and Theology, as well as the magazines Ekstasis, Broadview, and Plough.
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