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For Her Art
Pale girl, willow-slim, sits on a plinth
in the square—sketches the spire opposite, caught
by the rain unaware. And ever since,
I wonder at her face gone still, upturned
to the clouds and the strain, her eyes closed
in serene defiance. In her stead,
I could hardly have done the same, and yet
I yearn to turn back to the time, the place
of this simple belonging. Then, I'd leave
my seat at the table, my hard-won meal
half eaten, fly to her side in the storm,
to ask how she is doing and where I
have gone wrong. Her dress red, her hair golden—
soaked, wind-whipped, and long.
Nocturne at
Vence
After Chagall
Blinded by blue as they flip
the gilt frame: there's no time
to even admit that the sight
undoes me, brilliant flutter
of cockatrice
wings at sunset.
And I will always remember
that I loved you first,
little starling, tiny horse
bearing mother and
child:
you are my beginning.
Ruth at the Feet of Boaz
After Chagall
Fitful with sleep, the man stumbles drunk
into his reedy bed of hasty making. And the girl,
silently creeping, holds for a moment stalk-still
in the stars' meager light. Shadows have shrunk
from them into the dawning, two pale hands
and breasts unfolding. The man will wake soon
to a wash of white flesh and the fallow shell
of the moon.
Lovers' Crescent
After Chagall
They say she gazed at the sun so wistful long
before the wedding, as if in facing its fire
she'd sear and sink into the dust. No clear song
to mark her leaving, no
pomp and circumstance
played to bless this union. The road requires
only her slow treading, as if in deep water,
and the press of her small feet, one after
another, after the bridegroom unfurling
before her and into the distance.
Adrienne J. Odasso is currently completing her Ph.D. in
English at the University of York (UK). Her poetry has appeared
in a number of publications on both sides of the Atlantic,
including Strong Verse, Aesthetica, Sybil's Garage, Succour,
Farrago's Wainscot, The Liberal, Under the Radar, Mythic
Delirium, and Ouroboros Review - with new work forthcoming in
Illumen, Not One of Us, and others. Her short fiction has
appeared in anthologies from Hadley Rille Books and Drollerie
Press. Her first print chapbook, Devil's Road Down, will be
published by Maverick Duck Press in late 2009, and her first
book-length collection, Lost Books, will be published by Flipped
Eye Press in 2010. |
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