Death in the Reeds

Ophelia floats downriver

as white petals spread along the cutbank.

Wanting to see the water real, the artist posed his model in a bathtub seeking

to place her likeness

ripe on the canvas, yet he complained of the flies emerging from haystacks,

how they haunt flesh better than his touch with oils.

And if you attend to her mouth that has been left open

for singing . . . what? The silence on her lips for close

to two centuries holds a taste like stale bread or the scent of sleep

like a fine incense

slipped into the garland of poppies, its static red

a painted stillness.

you would be standing here years later, alone or among a crowd

and, seeing the overlapping blades of grass,

find death hidden and unmistakable and wonder how it has waited

for you on the bank for so long. It is all so unforgiven, so

romantic. And the woman in the painting floats a little longer, looking up

far beyond the wood framing the canvas.

You know she must sink—though you’ll be long gone

into what you’ll remember of her eyes

looking out onto that last minute forever.