A woman moves easily through a field of poppies,
casually holding a gentian-blue parasol. She looks
lost in thought, seems to feel herself alone,
although her daughter, almost hidden
by the waist-high grass, follows closely after,
clutching confidently before her a bouquet
red as the ribbon around her hat, her dress
trailing cerulean dabs behind her,
as though her passing caused cornflowers,
morning glories to open bluely.
Indeed, they both seem as alone as you,
just to the right of a starry Van Gogh night,
despite each other, despite a second woman
and child farther back up the hill, who stand
watching them (or would, had they eyes
in the brushstroke faces).
You and I that day, as I recall, were all eyes
intent on color, what particular shades could mean
and feel like. Outside, in the shops,
in the public gardens, other flowers bloomed,
other women moved easily among them,
and for a while you had been one of them,
luminous in a white skirt and muslin blouse
through which your breasts shone darkly.
That night, at the Hotel Paris-Nice,
your skirt and blouse blazed across
the darkness of our room like falling stars,
and a cool field opened before us
in which our blanched faces hung
like gardenias, which stain when touched.
Through our open window came the sound,
parasol cool, of someone playing the blues
down in a café, her words folding,
bending, falling like petals
from a fistful of flowers I was once caught,
as in a painting, passionately holding.