~DIANE LOCKWARD~

TEMPTATION BY WATER

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          —after The Open Window by Henri Matisse


Beyond the frame, a woman stands before
the open window—two shutters pulled inside
frame the sea beyond, so three-dimensional
she could wade into it and board a blue-hulled
boat, ride the waves of color—vermillion, jade,
gold, a slash of violet—could tread the razzle
of light on water, and here and there a splash
of black like shadows, foreboding something
she cannot name.

She floats inside the frame,
like Alice free-falling down the hole, enters this
other world, leaves her work on the windowsill,
her terracotta pots of red blossoms, drifts towards
the simulation of clouds, turquoise horizon, the sea
like liquid emeralds, a kind of paradise, not one
human in sight, not one person she can name.




 
© by Diane Lockward