Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Surrounded by Impressionist paintings at the Metropolitan Museum, the viewer of this poem by Eve Forti of Bremen is most of all engaged by the image she finds in her compact mirror.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Eve Forti

Transitory impressions: shiny
face in silver compact mirror,
tongue on teeth, lips curled.
She seems unaware
as Degas winks somewhere.
What would Renoir say?
Or Monet?
It appears she doesn't care.

She could be posing in a ladies lounge
or subway station.
Her rapt glance drawn to herself,
her admiring eyes
focused on her admiring eyes
and freshly painted mouth.
No broken color there.
But the luminosity, the brilliance.
A masterpiece of sorts.

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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2012 Eve Forti. Reprinted from Holding My Breath, Finishing Line Press, 2012, by permission of Eve Forti. Please note that the column is no longer accepting submissions; comments about it may be directed to special consultant to the poet laureate, Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.