We can have our pick of seats. 
Though the movie's already moving, 
the theater's almost an empty shell. 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; All we can see on our side 
of the room is one man and one woman&mdash; 
as neat, respectable, and distinct 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; as the empty chairs that come 
between them. But distinctions do not surprise, 
fresh as we are from sullen street and subway 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; where lonelinesses crowded 
about us like unquiet memories 
that may have loved us once or known our love. 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Here we are an accidental 
fellowship, sheltering from the city's 
obscure bereavements to face a screened, 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; imaginary living, 
as if it were a destination 
we were moving toward. Leaning to our right 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; and suspended before us 
is a bored, smartly uniformed usherette. 
Staring beyond her lighted corner, she finds 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a reverie that moves through 
and beyond the shine of the silver screening. 
But we can see what she will never see&mdash; 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; that she's the star of Hopper's scene. 
For the artist she's a play of light, 
and a play of light is all about her. 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Whether the future she is 
dreaming is the future she will have 
we have no way of knowing. Whatever 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; it will prove to be 
it has already been. The usherette 
Hopper saw might now be seventy, 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; hunched before a Hitachi 
in an old home or a home for the old. 
She might be dreaming now a New York movie, 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Fred Astaire dancing and kissing 
Ginger Rogers, who high kicks across New York 
City skylines, raising possibilities 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; that time has served to lower. 
We are watching the usherette, and the subtle 
shadows her boredom makes across her not-quite- 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; impassive face beneath 
the three red-shaded lamps and beside 
the stairs that lead, somehow, to dark streets 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; that go on and on and on. 
But we are no safer here than she. 
Despite the semblance of luxury&mdash; 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; gilt edges, red plush, 
and patterned carpet&mdash;this is no palace, 
and we do not reign here, except in dreams. 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This picture tells us much 
about various textures of lighted air, 
but at the center Hopper has placed 
a slab of darkness and an empty chair.

Joseph Stanton

Edward Hopper's "New York Movie"

Banana Trees

Joseph Stanton

Film Ekphrasis: Poems on Film

Edward Hopper's "New York Movie"

Banana Trees