Stephen
Cushman's first book of poems, Blue Pajamas, was published by LSU in 1998. He is also
the author of two books of criticism, William Carlos Williams and the Meanings of Measure
(Yale, 1985) and Fictions of Form in American Poetry (Princeton, 1993),
as well as of a creative non-fiction treatment of the Civil War, Bloody Promenade:
Reflections on a Civil War Battle (Virginia, 1999). He teaches at the University of
Virginia.
Between Blackfriars and Waterloo
In a country that dreads most color
it looks so loud against the mud,
black mud and red blanket spread
by the edge of the shriveled Thames
as strollers crowd the Queen's Walk
to lean on a railing and study the scene:
two policewomen in black caps,
white shirts, neckties, two guys
in huge rubber boots dredging the shallows,
pewter clouds overhead that let the sun
leak on the mud through cracks of blue,
and under the blanket something uncovered
by outgoing tide, somebody's body
shrouded in my favorite color.
Stephen
Cushman's first book of poems, 