Rodin’s Fallen Caryatid by Lindsay Bernal
She’s collapsing under her big stone:
woe, love, whatever. Vase, urn, bowl,
the cup made of hands at the brook
––what holds is hollow.
Does a child ever recover
from losing the vessel who bore her,
pushed her out of one watery world into this?
Is it an image of damnation?
A grave woman contorted,
knocked over. And yet
we see her grace, her goddess-
smooth curves yielding to the earth.
Is it the stone––what she holds—
or the weight of her hollow body that betrays her?
To learn more about Lindsay Bernal, visit her website by clicking here.
This poem comes from What It Doesn’t Have to Do With.
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