On Reflection
by Edgar Degas
Oil on canvas, 7/5 x 9.5 inches--The Phillips Collection, Washington
I know this woman who talks to dust.
her red dress merges
with the shadows of an easy chair
as she peers down over the sweep of cushioned back.
The light impassions her downward gaze
but only the corner hears the silent eloquence,
sunlit grief leaning out of an abstract past.
The white of her collar
dives straight to her heart.
She hugs herself with one hand;
with the other
she probes the red shadows
of the easy chair
which is at once again only herself.
She needs to speak, this woman.
The words are on her lips,
the worry on her brow.
Her red satin love
cries off the flat canvas world
as she translates the passion of pigment
and lectures the dust in the corner.
But in truth,
that is my reflection,
not hers
not yours.
So lean in.
What does she whisper to you?
Celia Hooper
not sure when I wrote this, maybe 1990?