Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery). Paris, summer 1907. Oil on canvas, 24 1/4 x 18 3/4″. Estate of John Hay Whitney. (278.1983) Image licenced to Amanda Glesmann SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART by Amanda Glesmann Usage : – 2000 X 2000 pixels © Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource
In a vain attempt,
she corseted herself in green wind
and cellophane, votive
to a thin whip of air.
As she lay there,
colors emptying to gray,
before the round voices
and fast hands came,
she fell in
and saw me for the first time,
not as fiction or sad fable,
but as a soiled fact
that had been abandoned to peril.
Every last knife and mask slowed to weeping,
venting a silvery glean.
John Biscello 