THE NEW YORK SUN
By DARA MANDLE
August 1, 2007; Arts Section, Page 17
Given the events in the film world last week--the deaths of directors Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman--I thought it was appropriate that a poem of mine about movies was published.
SELF-PORTRAIT AS OVERBEARING MOTHER IN A HITCHCOCK FILM
A BOY’S BEST FRIEND IS HIS MOTHER.
—Anthony Perkins, Psycho
I don’t take tranquilizers. I endure
Janet Leigh, stunning, soaping: the whore.
Norman cared for me as for the hawks
he stuffed and hung over the hearth.
Ingrid Bergman was like a daughter—
She wouldn’t lock me in the fruit cellar—
In Notorious, a Nordic beauty
For my German son, a Nazi.
He came to me for help, she was a spy.
I knew what to do, he could be so shy.
My cigarettes, please. This is what we tried:
We poisoned her slowly, and she almost died.