The Wife of the Painter

She is turning toward you

against a dark background,

and a spray of flowers

near the garden window,

in a sunlit dress

of the bright eighteenth century,

light and cheerful and demurely

flirtatious

(her hand cupped as if beckoning)

as the enlightenment itself—

her face pale and quietly shining,

with its sweetly curved nose

and small lips that barely hide a little

pouty smile, tender and ironical—

as if she has just caught you staring at her

and is about to ask you, “So,

Mr. Ramsey,

am I about to become your next painting?”

And you are about to laugh out loud

and reach for your pencil

and say, “That’s it, that’s it, my darling! Don’t breathe, don’t move!”

And you didn’t move,

and the painting held you

like a lover

and carried you

like a child,

down the broken path

between the rose bushes

and the hawthorns,

and the darkening country lanes,

and the gathering seasons,

past the withered garden

and the bitterness of love

and the gravestone in the churchyard corner

to a far country

in the sea-blown light

under other suns

and other skies.