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Study for "Interior With Two Women," 1932
When she wrote Orlando
my sister imagined a single life
in which one could be a man
and also a woman.
I have never imagined myself
like that. But I know the tissue-thin division.
Shoreline. The least wind altering the fringe.
The indeterminate hours, dusk
and, sometimes, if we're lucky,
the awakening.
Where there was one woman,
there are two when I step back,
put down my pencil,
pick it up. The seated figure in sleeves
seems about to smooth the pleats in her skirt
while opposite
the nude covers the place
where her sex folds in on itself.
What would they say to one another
if they could speak, for once
more than oil and dust,
the slippery medium
that quiets the whispering in the hedge,
the secrets the garden would tell,
except for this.
I will paint the coal stove
dead center in the canvas
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