MAPPING THE CITY: DC Places, Part II Martha Sanchez-Lowery   THE STATUE AT DUPONT CIRCLE American girl we landed at your feet and took off to sea that first aimless winter walk after the January Peregrine Mass at St. Matthew’s while waiting to go back to Mrs. Maldonado’s rooming house which closed from ten to four to discourage indolence two days into our immigration we found in this circled center of city a landlocked creature like us yielding to the sea in an empty fountain that would flow in summer from a great basin above her head below in the curves of the maiden’s arms birds sheltered from the snow and hid in her robes which hid the world from her hipbones ships were setting out I crushed into my mother’s for warmth on one of the circular benches I asked what it all meant being nine and in the habit of asking what it all meant knowing the answers were going to be strange and bitter tinged with sweet well, like the life I’d known up to then she said it was for the sea we had never seen its strength “la vida contra viento y marea” life despite the winds and tides beautiful and strong like we would need to be but lovely and loved like the carefully carved luxuriant hair of this American girl there were things that went unsaid and others not understood as we crossed back and forth that afternoon from the warmth of People’s Drugstore across the circle back to the dolphins navigating the globe at the feet of the girl back to that American girl whose long hair obscured cloud and sky for now.   Martha Sanchez-Lowery was was born in La Paz, Bolivia and is based in Washington, DC. Lately she has been dedicated to her perfumed garden. Her poem "The Dark Earth Call" was set to dance by Jane Franklin Dance Company. She is included on the CD recordings 31 Arlington Poets and Live at Iota. She served as poetry editor for Minimus, an annual literary journal, and was Director of the Word Works Washington Prize for many years. Her poetry has appeared in Moving Words, Poetas del Fuego, Winners: An Anthology, and Cabin Fever. Her chapbook Bocanegra was published by Mica Press. She recently edited the Collected Works of Maria Quiroga Vargas, one of the foremost poets of Bolivia, and is working on a translation of this work. The statue at Dupont Circle in memory of Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont was designed by Daniel Chester French who also designed the Lincoln Monument. It was carved by the Italian immigrant stone masons who helped carve the stones for the National Cathedral. Audrey Munson was the female muse for the sea—she was known as the model for “America.”   Published in Volume 11, Number 4, Fall 2010.   To read more by this author: Martha Sanchez-Lowery