An Abstraction of Your Life

              for Matisse’s Italian Woman

​Artist: Henri Matisse
b. 1869, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France; d. 1954, Nice, France
Title: The Italian Woman
Date: 1916
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​Frequently   affliction shapes you    lips a line     unbroken       do not give your hands
their freedom    he glides over you  to sleep on his side    of the earth       and
your tears are afraid    to terrorize his fists.
 
How will your shoulders bear        the love and war         resounding
an exactness      of  pale     regrets     but of course
he is there with you.


Your thirst is deep        not real            you double         your doubts      in the ruffles
of your life        jaded    as the three buttons       on an unshapely blouse
worn by such an             unlovely woman
 
Fists     lips     freedom  suffocate you         beneath the heaviness         of your breasts