– after a painting of his wife by Matisse,1905 <br /> <br />She’s ready to doff tradition’s muff and the cane <br />on which she stylishly leans. Yeats is about <br />to write: The bees build in the crevices. Her mane <br />of red is upswept, but wants out. <br />Hollowed by chaos, her face is Internet <br />turquoise and neon pink, cartooned as if <br />she were a television on which we get <br />the perennial game show, What’s the Dif? <br />Miracles of the time are all around her— <br />the German and his unconscious, Pavlov’s reflex— <br />a patent examiner with a theory that avers <br />time’s not absolute. Matisse goes psychedelic <br />on a woman’s face. Titled Woman, like so <br />many painters’ wives, she seems not to see <br />the changes or first she’d remove that chapeau, <br />and its crushing fruit, its dour antiquity. <br />Eyes wild as pinwheels whirl questions: <br />If we can’t escape birth or condition, <br />what’s the point? If not now, when? <br />Who will I be, Henri, when I come to fruition? <br />as a woman all rainbow atomic ignition.<br /><br />Rachel Dacus<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/femme-au-chapeau/
