June 2020
Tom Montag
tmmontag@centurylink.net
Author's Note: Note "The Woman in an Imaginary Painting" is a series of about 150 poems that came in a rush. Imagining a painting and the woman in it allowed me to look at (and to say) things that otherwise might not have occurred to me. I don't know what started this, nor how it will end, but here we go, for as long as she continues. A few poems still add themselves to the series, even now. Poets may think they are in charge of their work, but really they're not, as this series has proved to me.

Three Poems
from "The Woman in an Imaginary Painting" series

As if
she thinks

no one
looks she

opens
herself.

Shadow
hides

shadow.
What you

see still
trembles.
______________________

You might think she is
a simple country
girl for whom risk is


another way of
saying pleasure. You
could be right. She sits


here bathed in naked
stillness, the kind that
ecstasies bring.
______________________

She does not
know the pain
of long poses.
She is here
only in
this moment.
What lasts is
not posing
but the image
of it, and
the ache of
the artist
who, even
now, cannot
let her go.
©2020 Tom Montag
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