Charles Simic: Charm School

Charm School

Madame Gabrielle, were you really French ?
And what were those heavy books
You made them balance on top of their heads,
Young women with secret aspirations
We saw strolling past the row of windows
In the large room above Guido's barbershop ?

On the same floor was the office of an obscure
Weekly preaching bloody revolution
Men with raised collars and roving eyes
Wandered in and out. When they conspired
They spat and pulled down the yellow shades
Not to raise them or open the window again

Until the summer heat came and your students
Wore dresses with their shoulders bared
As they promenaded with books on their heads
And the bald customer in the barbershop
Sat sweating while overseeing the mirror
His three remaining hairs being combed.


{Simic survived the Nazi occupation of
Yugoslavia. This poem is a poignant reminder
of those times)