Natasha Tretheway
Letters from Storyville
December 1910
Miss Constance Wright
1 Schoolhouse Road
Oakvale, Mississippi
My Dearest Constance,
I am not out-of-doors as you feared,
and though I've had to tuck the blue, wool suit
you gave me, I do now have plenty to eat.
I have no doubt my decision will cause you
much distress, but still I must tell you--
when I had grown too weary to keep up
my inquiries and my rent was coming
due, I had what must be considered
the good fortune to meet Countess P___,
an elegant businesswoman who offered
me a place in her house. I did not accept
then, though I had tea with her--the first
I'd had in days. And later, too hungry
to reason, I spent the last of my purse
on a good meal. It was to her that I went
when I had to leave my hotel, and I am
as yet adjusting to my new life.
This first week I sat--as required--
each evening in the parlor, unnoticed,
the "professor" working the piano
into a frenzy, a single cockroach
scaling the flocked-velvet wallpaper.
The men who've come have called only
on the girls they know--their laughter
trailing off behind them, their gowns
floating past the balustrade. Though
she's said nothing, Countess is indeed
sympathetic. Just the other night
she introduced me to a longtime client
in hope that he'd take a liking to me.
I was too shy to speak and only pretended
to sip the wine he'd ordered. Of course,
he found me dull and soon excused himself
to find another girl. Part of me was
quite relieved, thought I knew I could not
earn a living that way.
And so, last night
I was auctioned as a newcomer
to the house--as yet untouched, though
Countess knows well the thing from which
I've run. Many of the girls do too,
and some of them even speak of a child
they left behind. The auction was a near
quiet affair--much like the one Whitman
described, the men some wealthy "gentlemen"
from out of town. Countess announced
that I recite poetry, hinting at a more dignified
birth and thus a tragic occasion for my arrival
at her house. She calls me Violet now--
a common name here in Storyville--except
that I am the African Violet for the promise
of that wild continent hidden beneath
my white skin. At her cue, I walked slowly
across the room, paused in strange postures
until she called out, Tableau vivant, and
I could again move--all this to show
the musical undulation of my hips, my grace,
and my patience which was to mean
that it is my nature to please and that I could,
if so desired, pose still as a statue for hours,
a glass or a pair of boots propped upon my back.
And then, in my borrowed gown
I went upstairs with the highest bidder.
He did not know to call me
Ophelia
Natasha Tretheway, Bellocq's Ophelia: Poems, Graywolf
Press, 2002.