Oct/Nov 2007 Poetry Special Feature |
Edvard Munch on Women
My first time, you ask? It was with Millie.
She pursued me. She was the wife of a cousin,and I hesitated. But it was my first time.
It was as much determination
as passion.I was like a man who overcomes his fear of drowning
by taking a sailboat into the heart
of a storm.I began to long for her, my heart leaping
like a flame among dry timber.
But she abandoned me, found me
"too uncomfortable."Now, when I paint Millie's face, I rub it
till it pales. She becomes as transparent
as a ghost, a premonition
of her going.Of course she is already gone,
as is last night's amethyst
colored sky. If I scrape
the paint more, perhaps her facewill vanish altogether,
as if she never existed.
Women are likethat.