BPR 51 | 2024
Monet. Trouville. 1870.
Oh, that horrible chair!
The sky is built
from Impressionist smears,
a creamy pavilion tent
down the strand seems
in shaking-hands distance
of the real. A matron sits
in layers of a stifling
dress under a striking blue
parasol, far too small
or her head far too large.
A companion, just as
unsuitably wrapped in black
this hot day, peruses
a newspaper to ignore
the matron, the sun, the painter.
Between the women,
like a faithful dog,
sits the ridiculous chair,
its angles all wrong,
through which the painter says,
“Abas the viewer, abas the real!”