Uninvited Reader

She notes in the poem she's reading where the disembodiedvoice speaking encounters ."an ugly old woman."just momentarily, in part of a single line, in oneof the many long corridors and sharp turnings of the poem,so that she's quickly lost to view. That's me, she thinks,I'm an ugly old woman, I who sit here reading this poemand its ugly old woman phrase and the poet, when he stumbledover her splayed, swollen legs, registered her presence,her inheritance, her baggage of limitations .- ugly, old,woman .- but never knew, couldn't, because who couldknow, who can stop and know her... And this reader keepsthinking, loving, understanding, trapped in her eyefollowing the voice on and on while somewhere back in the poemin a blank passage an ugly old woman sits against a wall.