Against the Remains

                                                                        

Against the Remains

                           Morning Sun Edward Hopper, 1952, oil

Certainly, you sit, not at the edge

of the bed, close to the window;

but at its center (his center)

where Hopper’s placed you,

told you to stay and to sit still

like any good wife should do.

       

Do you regret it, Josephine?

How willingly you traded

revelry for solitude; vivaciousness

for silent-slants-of-the-sun

on houses, invading sparse

rooms and empty streets.

Looking out that window, do you see

what he paints? Is the long length

of the red brick building with windows

like glass-eyed spies watching

color fade from your skin

as charm from a marriage?

Maybe those barren buildings

remind you of red ochre

stained walls, shed unfertilized

with each passing moon, yet,

your salmon-pink slip

seductively clings to heaving

bosoms, falls from shoulders,

in his shadows and light¾

was it hard to put your brush

down and pick up your Eddie?

We all gaze at your sharp-cornered

cheeks, feel the flesh of chapped

hands you rest on your calves. Ennui

slips between shadow and wall¾

and onto your bed. Yet, how easy

to miss beauty against what remains.