Portrait of Louisa Cobb Thompson by an Unidentified Chinese Artist

She’s twice made, an image:

first daguerreotype, then painting

side by side behind the glass display,

part of Nantucket & The World—

she’s the wife of the Captain,

of the last Nantucket whaler,

and was dead when he sailed

across far seas, a photograph of her

in his pocket. Somewhere,

he met a Chinese artist

who must have agreed to paint

her for cheap (at least in dollars).

He mirrored the photograph

so that in the painting I see

her left arm instead of right

slightly bent, resting gently

on her dress, which he guessed

was black, though it might

have been brown or blue.

He kept her lace collar white,

but made the collar button

red—for her earrings and lips

too. He wanted to give her

some luck, vitality, happiness,

all held in a color—or maybe

he saw it in her photograph, in her—

who knows if he knew she was dead.

The didactic merely says:

—The porcelain complexion

and Asiatic appearance of the eyes

gives this painting away

as the work of a Chinese artist—

So I make up any history

through looking—at her, at his

work of art. I take my own

photo of her on my phone,

now a third image—mine

to remember what I want:

that red—that red I identify

by—my ancestor’s hand.