Monet's "On the Banks of the Seine"
by Meridith Gresher
Camille, you sit with your back to me, stiff in your blue
and delicate in your white striped blouse, as true a flower as your namesake.
You stare at the Seine and watch colors bleed from widow
gray to cornflower as the tide moves toward you, becoming in fact, a part of you.
You know you are loved as the color of sky sweeps up from Claude's brush into your
chambray skirt and right into the bonnet blue you cast aside.
You were told when you looked into the Danube that you would know you were in love
if you saw blue waters. Shimmering below your ship set sail on promises, you blinked
and you saw your future in the arms of a painter. Not easy.
But then you never thought much of easy.
Your theory of the world proved right in childbirth.
Jean stays back at the inn for a few quiet hours while your breasts fill.
You think a little beer would be good for the nursing. Too, there may be time for a small
sail in the boat with Claude, who will undoubtedly make a mess of your costume with oar
water and crusts of bread heavy with camembert.
Later, he will want to paint the stretch of houses your eye gazes upon camembert white.
You like knowing this first. You like your secrets.
That is why you have not moved your face to the light
but sit contented under the grove of trees, to let the foliage like lace,
trace shadows upon your hair. In the next instant, you will take a dandelion in your hand
and think the day a splendid way to live, until the bill comes due.