The Balthus Poems    

A new lesson: Bring words to this picture.
School out for the day, and Daniel Simko's apartment
became night school. Dinner ordered in from corner
restaurants. Music played low on the stereo. Hours to go.

Each evening, Daniel would introduce me to the works
of East European writers, artists, photographers, dissidents.
And the one book that became ritual: The Balthus Poems
by Stephen Dobyns. Then, I'd never heard of either of them.

But don't we all learn by imitation, first? We spent months
with that book, writing our own versions, our descriptions
of the paintings, the parlours and lives, the education
we received in return. Yes, the picture was a room to die in.

We agreed it was Sunday. The air looked like Sunday.
Anyone in the picture could have been the partisan.
Even the woman who had just left that drawn room,
her fragrance still evoking the night, the fog outside.

The silence in the drawing could have been only
her fragrance, or could have been the enigma code needed
to break the war. The white plate on the table, the open
book. Bring words to this picture. The possibilities endless.