AFTER A GAUGUIN AT THE MET

                                                 For Marilyn and Lenny

He took these women seriously

And they gaze back at him,

Eyes fixed on the painter from another world.

He has them where he wants them:

Deep in their bodies of desire,

Neither overjoyed nor despairing

But looking (almost) as he looked:

Into the serene emptiness of all

We encounter here: and yet

As they carry their beauty & fruit

So nobly, their breasts exposed

To the warm Tahitian atmosphere

We know that love endures in care

And the moment of rapture captured

Sends us back to that island

As light breaks through a tree

And an unknown world is revealed?

Concord of an instant?s bright heroics

Dec. 2009

Metropolitan Museum, NYC, 2nd Floor