City Girl in the Country: A Conversation with Poet Roberta Swann

Listen above or download. Running time: 10 minutes, 47 seconds.

Poet Roberta Swann reads her poem, “Looking Back,” and talks with Zachary Sussman about weekend naturalists, fashionable insects, and what one may see in a fly's hundred eyes.

Looking Back

You can take a city girl to the country,
and get her to get on with worms,
a plague of caterpillars even,
this year's ladybugs--who doesn't like a ladybug?
But heaps, everywhere?

Back on the deck, breaking in another bikini,
she sunbathes, watching hummingbirds chase one another
from the feeder, until a chickadee runs them both
out of town--tourists anyway.

                                           He's off
planting heirlooms, while crows hang in pines,
waiting for action. Everything is la di da, until
a neighbor starts shooting off guns and firecrackers.
And flies arrive. Slap. Spray. Pray. Plead. Read labels.
Realize repel and discourage are code for: Good Luck!

The only way out is in. So she slips into something
less comfortable and takes a walk. That neighbor
roaring by on his ATV calls out: " Happy Memorial Day!"
She recovers on a rock. Listens to wind. La di da.
Until flies arrive. She sprays. One dances on the nozzle,
slim legs tap-tapping high heels on marble.
Such footwork! Who could hate such a fly?
She looks closer. Takes off rose-tinted Gucci glasses
and sees its hundred eyes looking back.