Narrative

The candlestick obscures
her face—cuts her in two
and hides her from the painter,
from the angle
he has settled on
to sketch this scene, where she
leans forward to talk
with the other woman
—yellow hair,
mauve dress, hint
of a ruffle at her neck, and yet
so adamant, the bottle of wine
at her elbow full-
bellied, brown, and as
solid as earth, as the man
in the foreground, one hand a fist
on the table like a paw,
the other drawn up to his chin
as in The Thinker, he is
all of this, and the room
with its tall cupboards
and what might be a scattering of
dishes on the counter is
all Left Bank cafés, with their
poets and painters, is a
Nova Scotia kitchen
where we are
two women talking
(rocky shore, a gusty night)
one man sitting slightly apart
(another, sketching)
and the burst
flame of the candle
is halo, is
sun, and I haven’t mentioned
the plate, cut off at the edge
of the table, hand-
painted boldly, in the indigos
of a warmer sea,
which makes it seem like
something calling to us,
beckoning
from another hemisphere, one
we haven’t found yet
in the oldest stories.

© Sue MacLeod