60 for 60: Letter to a Lampshade

By Zoe Maya Engels

Anne Marie Rooney’s poem “Letter to a Lampshade,” published in Columbia Journal in 2012, is about so much more than light and the material that enfolds it. The lampshade—the object—becomes a tool for the narrator’s profound introspection: “If I were like you, round, / apologetic. If I could seal closed and fall / into a bed wearing only light.” If only, if only…

A lampshade dims light, protecting our eyes, but it never completely obscures that light. Rooney conveys the sense that perhaps people are inclined to think most about the light, both literal and metaphorical, in the dark or in the darkest of times; she encourages us to reevaluate our gaze and look at the light from a fresh perspective. I hope you find this subtle blend of light and dark as beautiful as I do.

Rooney is also the author of two poetry collections: Spitshine (2012), and No Beautiful (2018).


Letter to a Lampshade

Anne Marie Rooney

November, and already the cats have folded
themselves into their own pillowy napes.
We haven't spoken, now, for some time.
Outside the window, a patina of frost covers
everything. I drink thick black tea, turn
the oven on for heat, twist my legs into a warm
gray braid. A starling's left her eggs
to the crows, the crows hum murder
across the sky and across the street
the religious wear the same color, faith's old
dark song. I have stopped speaking to anything
but the body, maybe when he calls me
and tells me to come and kiss him, I wind
my arm around my neck and go out
walking. If I were like you, round,
apologetic. If I could seal closed and fall
into a bed wearing only light.
It's not even noon and already someone is dead, the church
thrums and steam comes off my stout red cup
and the cats blink and this is not what I have
to write. Last night he took me to his car
and started driving. I rolled down the window
and blew smoke from the pocket of my mouth
into the pocket of the dark. The moon was a full
white O, wrapped in nothing. We came to a road
so new that under his speed it made a sound
like rain. We were nowhere without a sign. I don't know
how to say this except like this: In the chalky light
was a cow walking slowly down the middle of the road.
November in New York and I am already a small,
primal thing, my body convinced of nothing
but itself. In the field were maybe a dozen more
and as we slowed they slowed and looked at us.
Someone has died. And later, in the dark, when we stopped
rose out of the car, when he wrapped his coat
around me and the air smelled like fire. The clouds
covered the moon while he kissed my neck. An airplane
flew low over the hills and there was snow on the ground.
A woman walked down the middle of the road, low,
alone. Believe that her face was all I wanted to tell you.