Fox and Virgin

Pale as lilies, chill as death,
the painter laid her in a field,
where she could gaze into cerulean,
serene and undefiled
above the Breton granite tors,
the cold inertia of the bay,
were her lids not closed,
refuting sky, negating light;
and hear the grasses like the sea,
the nearer fricatives of rye,
were her ears not pounding
with the echoes of a heart in fright.

The painter's stony eye
sweeps roseate planes of fallow earth
between the girl and broken shore,
linked by meanders of a path
where figures dressed as for a sermon,
funeral, bridal fete advance,
distanced by their rustic piety
from this barbaric rite.

The virgin, scarcely more than child,
a girl not grown into her bones,
is lying naked, dispossessed.
A dog fox rears above her face and breast.
The fox regards the witness or voyeur
with arcane amber eyes.


(After the painting 'The Loss of Virginity' 1890-1891
by Paul Gauguin.)

*This poem was first published in 4W twenty-three, 2011,
Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia.