Narrative

Poem of the Week

Cassandra Cleghorn is the author of the poetry collection Four Weathercocks (Marick Press, 2015). A recipient of a BA in Greek Language and Literature from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a PhD in American Studies from Yale, she lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Photograph by Diana Walczak.

The Docent

by Cassandra Cleghorn
In Constable’s great picture Flailing Turnip-heads, East Bergholt,
the big trees stand and watch, they stand and watch in a line that runs
from left to right, near to far, bright green and dark, leaf and pine,
fragrant, branching over the pairs of men and boys bending over
the brown ground. The two boys at the left make tables of their backs,
jacket of white, jacket of blue, pushing? pulling? we do not know
but the docent is making demands of us, she is prodding us to tell her
what they are doing. We may not read the label, she says, we cannot
see the label, she has placed herself in front of it, we do not know the title
of the painting, we will not learn of turnips, of flailing, of East Bergholt.
Want to read the rest?
Please login.
New to Narrative? sign up.
It's easy and free.
The password field is case sensitive. Account & Password Help.
Joining Narrative gives you FREE access to thousands of stories, poems and essays. It’s easy:
PLEASE NOTE: We are discontinuing our support of Microsoft-related addresses, including msn.com, live.com, outlook.com, and hotmail.com, and we ask that you use an alternative address, such as gmail.com, yahoo.com, fastmail.com, comcast.net, verizon.com, icloud.com, or other.

We have found Microsoft-related email addresses to be sometimes inconsistent in terms of delivering messages, and we want to make sure that you can access your account and reliably receive messages that you have requested.
Email Preferences
Main profile
Share:
Twitter logo Facebook logo Tumblr logo Forward logo Print HTML logo
  • CONTACT US
  • ADVERTISE
  • KINDLE EDITION
  • MY ACCOUNT
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • TERMS OF USE
  • A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION
Narrative is a nonprofit
supported by readers
who love great writing.
Read us.
Support us.