NaPM April 6 2015

[milo]

American Goth

 
We see the postcard and don't really look
at faces pinched like piecrust at a church social.
Fail to see the breath fog the black cathedral
window. Forget to kneel on the wraparound porch,
smell the decay beneath swept floorboards.
 
We never see the man lying awake at night
telling himself that the knocking
on the pipes is the house settling, or the woman
blocking the threshold when neighbors come to call.
If it is only a postcard, then when the mob roams
this quiet street looking for monsters,
they might be asked to grab their pitchfork and join.



Grant Wood
American, 1891-1942
American Gothic, 1930

This one, particularly, I have read over and over.

"faces pinched like piecrust" is one of those brilliant lines that is so true, you immediately wish you had written it.  Now that I have read it, it seems impossible the picture wasn't created to go with the poem rather than the other way around.

I think it does a great job of telling the whole story without ever directly saying anything.