Poem of the Week 2024/20

Spy

She walked alone, as she did every morning.

Hers the narrow sidewalk, the corroded lamppost.

Larks thrilled the apricot air. Barbed crucifixes

Against the sky, the haloes of mist around streetlamps –

They reminded her of Jesus on a gilded altar

And Mama in a blue apron, praying.

Where were the oily midnights of depravity?

A woman of hard edges, blonde with dark armpits –

Where was she but always coming in from the cold?

– Rita Dove

Who is the titular spy here? On the one hand, it could be the woman who is the subject of this poem: one who walks alone, in the liminal moral space of the spy, & the final line (Where was she but always coming in from the cold?) seems to clinch the identification, as it refers to  John le Carré's celebrated 1963 novel of Cold War espionage, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (made into a film starring Richard Burton in 1965). The success of the novel popularized the idiom to come in from the cold, meaning "to become part of a group or of normal society again after one has been outside it" (definition from Merriam-Webster). In the novel & the idiom, the cold refers to the shadowed, morally ambiguous world of spying, as well as to the Cold War in which the story takes place. In this poem, there are suggestions that this woman is in a morally ambiguous space, but cold is also a literal reference to the cooler morning temperatures in which she walks daily; it also could refer to an emotional world, either the one she lives in (she is a woman of hard edges) or the one she inhabits (oily midnights of depravity), or, more likely, a bit of both. But once you've been in the morally ambiguous space, some of it always clings to you: this woman is always coming in from the cold. It is a daily act for her, which means she never truly comes in from the cold, at least metaphorically, as she's always going back out into it, with the cycle repeated day after day.

On the other hand, the spy could be the poet-narrator, who has been tracking this woman & knows her regular morning routine, & by implication & extension, the spy might also be each of us reading the poem, who are sharing in the speaker's somewhat voyeuristic morning surveillance. "Somewhat" voyeuristic, because, in a poem full of suggestive, hovering borders (between past & present, memory & reality, city & country, the sacred & profane), the speaker implies rather than states & judges things. The woman seems to be a sex worker, rather than a housewife or office worker, but that's evoked rather than stated: she is walking the streets (but does that make her a streetwalker?) & she is right away put in the context of a lamppost, leaning against which is associated with disreputable behavior such as drunkenness or sexual solicitation; corroded as a modifier to lamppost not only tells us something about the street this woman is walking – obviously it's not a wealthy, well-kept-up neighborhood – but also suggests an air of moral rot. (It should be noted, though, that the woman isn't actually leaning against the lamppost; it is described as hers, just like the narrow sidewalk – is it just that she's the only one out there? or do they belong to her because that is how & where she works? or is there some other sort of emotional connection & ownership going on?)

I keep picturing the narrator as a girl nearing adolescence; it seems to me an older person would dismiss this hard-edged woman, redolent of the illicit, & a very young child wouldn't recognize the signs of anything wrong. Why is the speaker watching this woman regularly? The fascination seems to be linked to something the woman is telling her (& through her, us) about the complexities & difficulties of adult life. Yet the narrator couldn't simply be someone observing street life; she also seems to be an omniscient, or at least empathetic, poet, who can tell us what the woman is remembering: gilded altars crowned by Jesus, her mother in a blue apron praying.

We are obviously in an urban or at least built-up area here (the sidewalk, the lamppost), but, in the characteristic manner of this poem, we are kept off-balance: suddenly, in the third line, Larks thrilled the apricot air, a lushly bucolic image that redirects our impressions of what is going on. The lark is the joyful bird of morning; the apricot skies bring with them the sweet soft smell & taste of golden summer fruit. But before we reach the end of that same line, we're redirected again: barbed crucifixes appear. are there literal crucifixes (or, more likely, crosses) on steeples? Or is this a metaphor for how the streetlamps look? A crucifix differs from a cross in having the figure of Jesus on it: an image of suffering humanity, as is our hard-edged woman, perpetually coming in from (& then going back out into) the cold. But these crucifixes are more complicated than the usual reassuring religious symbol; they are barbed. Are they being protected by the barbs, or are they attacking with the barbs? Are they fending off or separating from the world, & from those of us in it?

The crucifixes lead into the holy symbol of haloes around the streetlamps: an observable natural phenomenon (the way mist diffuses light into a surrounding radiance) & a reminder of a spiritual realm & of organized church-going. The woman, we are told, recollects a religious past, one as lush & colorful as the unexpected larks against the apricot sky: the shining splendor of gilded altars, enriched with sculpture, & her mother, called by the more intimate & affectionate Mama, in a blue apron. (Blue is the traditional color of the Virgin Mary, the loving mother who suffers along with her child).

Is it this memory that separates the woman from her oily midnights of depravity? Oily is such a rich word there, so sticky, slimy, somehow both rich & unpleasant. Where were they, is the question, but who is asking? Is it the woman herself, pulled from the life she's now living into a memory of the life she used to live? Or is it the observer/poet, who has thought one thing about the woman (hard-edged, depraved) but who, with a moment of empathetic insight into her past, suddenly sees her in a different way, one distanced from whatever nighttime corruption she's involved in?

It's in the last two lines that we get our first physical view of the woman: she is a woman of hard edges (did the oily midnights create those edges? do they help protect her from them?), blonde with dark armpits: again, more is suggested here than stated. I have the impression the blondeness is artificial; is this some recollection of tough blondes in the movies? The woman's race is not specified, though there is a tendency to assume she is Black, because the poet is; are the dark armpits just exposed flesh, or sweat stains, even at the morning hour, indicating an uncleanly late night? are the armpits noted because the woman is exposing them in a way that seems somehow worthy of note, perhaps suggestive of other dark crevices in her person? The final question, Where was she but always coming in from the cold?, does seem to be coming from the poet-narrator, though you could easily imagine the woman thinking the same thing as she travels between the blue & gold sanctified past & the corroded reality of the present. She seems to be caught in a perpetual loop, going between past & present, city & country, holiness & depravity, always coming in from the cold only to head right back out.

There's another possibility for spy, though I've run out of hands: it might be a verb, describing the way we see the world, & other people in it: like spies, we watch for patterns & for clues, which we then interpret, though we can never be certain we're correct (it's implied that the woman here is a sex worker, but we don't really know for sure; there are other possibilities that would encompass depravity & hard edges). If it's a verb, spy might even be an imperative: given the oblique & cryptic world surrounding us, looking attentively for clues & interpreting them fully & empathetically may be the only way to comprehend what is going on around us. What does it mean to be a spy? It means we are dealing with inference & partial knowledge in trying to parse a puzzling, morally ambiguous world. It's best to pay close attention, & also to tread lightly; lives are at stake.

I took this poem from Selected Poems by Rita Dove.