~CAROL FRITH~

FIGURES ON THE STREET

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(after The Impasse Cottin, Utrillo)

The blue air rises out of the cobblestones
of Montmartre—a little dust, a hill
climbing the back of the frame, the foreground still
as the end of summer.  Utrillo, drunk on tones
of white, paints himself into white zinc—
wall after pale wall of French stucco,
smooth, blank, pristine, lining the narrow
street.  As he builds up paint, does he think
albumen? eggshells? or blinding, migraine light?
Because he's alcoholic, more likely it's
the light.  At last, one painterly conceit:
walking away, their backs to all this white,
he adds in black—a function of opposites—
four figures on the zinc-white street.
 

© by Carol Frith