Anthony S Abbott - The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat

The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat

waits on the sidewalk outside
my window. The flower in her hair
is wet. She stands very still

her eyes focussed upward on some
object I cannot see. She does not
move,but she smiles . . . slightly.

Perhaps she plays the cello
and she is humming Bartók silently
making the bow ripple with her tongue

against her teeth. Or, maybe, she waits
for a bus to take her to her lover.
Or she has read a letter from Paris

or Istanbul and she smells coffee
and chestnuts steam roasted and she
hears in the cobbled streets the cries

of vendors under the aged curves
of bridges. Perhaps she is just a girl
standing in the rain by a stone bench

in the early morning while the
street shines. It is nothing--you argue.
Then why do I weep, and why are there

splinters in my palms, and why do I
stand here, long, long, after she is
gone?

In Abbott's vibrant collection of poems, a lucid voice embraces a lyric intelligence of impressive power and understanding . . . with their passionate knowing of important things, Abbott's poems secure a place in the mind and persist there, becoming familiar and loved.
-Stephen Sandy

The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat is a moving and intelligent book. Abbott's wide knowledge of literature informs his experiences; his experience deepens his understanding of literature. And he remembers the especially remembers "the way boys dream" -- at whatever age they are.
-Fred Chappell