NOT ONE THING
Living deep in this Body, mind being Distraction. Always
Reach for whatever, thorn -stemmed rose or gorgeously Fingered frog who may Sweat poison. Why not trick
Out my fingertips And suction myself Hard to a leaf among
Droplets I am small Enough to sip. Fill, then Founder. In time I will
Have nothing left to touch, Nothing to touch it with.
ARTICHOKE
They came out of some
-where, those tight-wound
Globes in the produce section, but
This plant might have
Landed from space, taller
Than I am and arms out
-spindling to send me all
Directions at once, each wrist
breaking into a new time
And place: here a bud not yet
Open, there a blossom bright
Purple and so sexed-out in the sun
Bees can’t help themselves, get
Drunk and burrow in to feel
Tiny petals caressing them
All over, little legs scrabbling
Every which way. Then
Look here: fruit
Has plumped out all but
Ripe, its blush pinking so
I keep my eyes right on it.
DEGAS DANCERS
The animal of them gauzes And abstracts, skirts
Emitting light in clouds. For us Through him they remain beasts
Plowing the studio’s field. In this Degas differed from none: he blocked
Bodies to make them Work for him. The men come into
Paint differently, the Nabis not Daubed and frivolous but wearing dark
Suits, poised to speak, drawn To make the world
Explode. Not like these Assemblages of arms and legs
Akimbo as you like, those Breasts, those lazy eyes, that hair.
The Prophets: Bonnard, Denis, Ranson, Vuillard, Roussel, Vallotton, Sérusier, Cazalis National Gallery, London, 2023Katharine Coles’ tenth collection of poems, Time and Chance, will be published by Turtle Point Press in 2025; her ninth, Ghost Apples, was published by Red Hen Press in June 2023. Her prose books include The Stranger I Become: on Walking, Looking, and Writing (essays, Turtle Point Press), Look Both Ways (memoir, Turtle Point Press), and two novels. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program (to write the collection of poems The Earth Is Not Flat), and the Guggenheim Foundation.