What Stillness Is
for Trista
Faintings 110; shrieks 20 (per performance); left theater (first act 19); left theater (second act) 150, left theater (third act) 1; returned (after revival) 100; returned visit 10 (per performance); husbands summoned to escort home wives 10 (per performance); taxicab increase 500% —Dracula’s first seven weeks at the Biltmore Theater, LA TIMES, August 1928
In the theater the women faint we’ve been at it for years our collapsing & quaking our crumpling at blood & bile But I’ve done one better: I faint & they gild my pockets I know what stillness is my sisters too this our sole inheritance this our heart’s white desert You know the scene: woman alone in the kitchen woman alone at her needlework woman alone eyes rolled to snowdrift—heart slowing slowed I will be your nothing; I already am Your empty post-show glow your canary in a coffin: its only song the quiet of an angry husband’s house I am the greatest fainting woman in the world this is no act You see we slip out of time: our tiny black escapes & then back in: we bleed to life before the Count’s empty reflection He is not there; that is his terror & ours now Lugosi feasts on Lucy his endless thirst unslaked until a man unsheathes his favorite weapon impaling the creature he stuffs the shiv inside him deep The whalebone sucks our skinny ribs squeezes my sisters to exhaustion but I am full of breath & power— my faint is no fear I got paid while they burned him & his film turned to smoke like my sisters long ago Do not fear the stillness— the closed casket & the monster it births Fear what’s born from the quiet womb before the storm This is my house & I’m on the floor my pain sells tickets puts asses in seats When you turn out the lights remember every evil is born of woman I don’t have to kill you; you’re already dead Without us is no us so bring the smelling salts Watch me drink the darkness honey I’ve got bills to pay
Caitlin Cowan is the author of Happy Everything, forthcoming in February 2024 from Cornerstone Press. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Best New Poets, The Rumpus, New Ohio Review, Missouri Review, Southeast Review, and elsewhere. Her work has received support from the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Vermont Studio Center. Caitlin works for Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, where she serves as Director of International Programs and as Chair of Creative Writing. Caitlin also serves as a Poetry Editor at Pleiades and writes PopPoetry, a weekly poetry and pop culture newsletter. Caitlin lives on Michigan’s west coast with her husband, their young daughter, and their two mischievous cats.
