Page 54 - November 2020

54
Litterateur
November 2020
"The Woman in an Imaginary Painting"

Tom Montag

You walk away
and she calls you I would take her,
back. She knows, the woman
in the painting,

and she wants you
to know, there is into the hills
no going home. of her childhood
and we would lie

The museum will
close for the night, among the sweet
yes, but that's not grasses at evening.
We would kiss
the end of things.
Could he have painted the flowers. The earth
any other young woman would forgive the sky

from the neighborhood? the coming darkness

Would they have posed and we would find
naked in their kitchens our solace among
the way she has? the scheming stars.

Would they have blushed
just that right touch
of color at her throat?

Would their darkness have
been the mark of their
symmetry the way hers

is? Would they have sung
the day, as she does, to
this glowing stillness?