A Portrait of Tallulah Bankhead, Applause, UA Fort Smith

UA Fort Smith > Academics and Degrees > Colleges > College of Arts and Sciences > English Department > Applause

A Portrait of Tallulah Bankhead

By Kelly Bisby

She stares into the distance like
twelve pairs of eyes witnessing the suicide
of a desperate man,
jumping
from
his
twelfth-story office window, spread eagle on the pavement.

I mouth her name
in thick clouds of vapid white foam.

The shades of her face – brown, cream, yellow – like tanned citruses
on clumsy canvases of not-white.
So sweet
but
not so cold.
Not from Williams’ icebox.

Warm and tender and supple,
The colors grow in orchards,
defiantly,
as ripened fruits in aging trees.

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