Writing by Jess Rush. Painting 'L'Incendie des Tuileries' by Georges Clairin, 1871.
Painting
all black
even the eyes
in her hand
a small gloaming
glints off wrapped silver smoke snakes to scarlet petals naked ladies
crafted in cream
she flicks a fingertip
delicate despite
a callous charred remorselessly
I consider Catherine’s
vision converted to ruins
the whole place
gone up in flames
the neon shrieks
multiplied in fear
the women with their sale bags in awe of the disintegration
of order
and I imagine the poets
curled by catastrophe
as if lounging by hearth
on cold winter’s eve
that certain gaze undisturbed by chaos
hung up on flowers
and bird bodies
the dissection of names
how to birth
and later
how to disappear
July, 2021
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