Early Elegy: Headmistress

The word itself: prim, retired, its artifact her portrait above the fireplace, on her face the boredom she abhorred, then perfected, her hands held upward—their emptiness a revision, cigarette and brandy snifter painted, intolerably, out, to leave her this lesser gesture:What next? or shrugged Whatever. From the waist down she was never there.