by Mary Rose O Reilley

by Mary Rose O'Reilley
     Monet confided to his journal， "All the while she was dying， I could not stop painting her face."
     —Monet at Vétheuil
     He will paint her again as grain；
     now she is fog
     the chantilly fog of the Seine：
     avoiding no hint of the slow dissolve，
     the bandage around her jaw，
     rigor's cramp at the lip，
     how death abraded and hollowed her，
     while he remembered light.
     Had he a failed heart
     or a wholly transfigured eye
     that knew her tonight as water
     convulsion and sky？
     that stared through layers of the body
     at more than it took to die？