Poetry Archives

after Seurat

No one could have foreseen
the catastrophe—it rose from

the still water and the sun

blocked out by spring chapeaus
and parasols.  They were waiting,
or posing—and here and there a dog

poked at the ground, and the smoke rose
lazily from the boater’s pipe.  Earlier

a mother wiped an eyelash from her daughter’s cheek,
the local rowing crew powered their way

across the water, and the town lush slid vermouth
down his throat.