At Childe Hassam's Table

At Childe Hassam's Table

Amid this feast of poppies and snow,
pavements lamp-lit under rain,
granite ledges, summer seas,
a blue-green robe
and light, light everywhere,
muted, full, reflected,
soft in city windows,
doubling a bowl of apples,
tripling a mirrored face,
the guard at the gallery entrance
cannot contain herself.

She has fallen in love and must say so,
shows us flecks of goldfish
she almost failed to see,
would, if it were possible,
cross the threshold of a frame
to tide pools caught among the rocks.
She has fallen love
and carries us with her, lovers, too,
of his light in all its humors,
into the only-just-realized,
multiple joys of all this.