Knife and Fork in Chainsong at the Spine

Caroline Blackwood Lowell, Walker Evans, 1973-74




None swims with her and breathes the air.
A mermaid flattens soles and picks a trout,
knife and fork in chainsong at the spine,
weeps white rum undetectable from tears.
She kills more bottles than the ocean sinks,
and serves her winded lovers' bones in brine,
nibbled at recess in the marathon.

/---/

You use no scent, dab brow and lash with shoeblack,
willing to face the world without more face.
I've searched the rough black ocean for you,
and saw the turbulence drop dead for you,
always lovely, even for those who had you,
Rough Slitherer in your grotto of haphazard.



Excerpts from Mermaid, Robert Lowell, 1973. The poem is from the collection The Dolphin
where many poems describe his relationship to Caroline.

"To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage"

"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."

—Schopenhauer



"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.
Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . .
It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust–
whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.
My only thought is how to keep alive.
What makes him tick? Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . .
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant."



Robert Lowell, from Selected Poems 1976

Robert Lowell by Walker Evans 1973

Robert Lowell, Walker Evans, 1973

Girl in Bed

Girl in Bed, Lucian Freud, 1952

Robert Lowell died from a heart attack in 1977 while riding in a taxicab from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Manhattan.
He had visited Caroline Blackwood in Ireland and with him he had Lucian Freud's painting of Caroline; Girl in Bed. He was holding
it in his arms as he died.

Robert Lowell by Walker Evans 1973

Robert Lowell, Walker Evans, 1973

Caroline Blackwood and Robert Lowell by Walker Evans 1973

Caroline Blackwood and Robert Lowell at Their Country House in Kent, Walker Evans, 1973

Caroline Blackwood, Robert Lowell and Sheridan by Walker Evans 1973

Caroline Blackwood and Robert Lowell with their son Sheridan, Walker Evans, 1973

Caroline Blackwood and Robert Lowell by Walker Evans 1973

Caroline Blackwood and Robert Lowell, Walker Evans, 1973


Caroline Blackwood began a relationship with the american poet Robert Lowell in 1970, they were married in 1972.