POETRY FRIDAY

My mind is just full of poetry after Kentucky, and I am devoting Poetry Friday to polishing up some pieces to take with me to next workshop.

Meanwhile, here is my contribution to Poetry Friday, another in the historical women series that appears in EINSTEIN AT THE ODEON CAFE. Be sure to check out Poetry Friday Roundup hosted by Susan Taylor Brown at Susan Writes.

Picasso’s Widow Ends Her Life

It seemed a river of crimson ran
even before Jacqueline fired the gun --

the wild roses that once climbed the trellis
now spilled across the kitchen tile

and bloomed on the carpet in the next room.
In the beginning they loved with the purity

of sunlight and slept with child-like abandon,
but love finds its true voice in time.

Without him her skin fell into blue lines,
her eyes were shattered by ghosts,

her neck and arms plundered by those
innocent of the simple faith

of women who choose to love the unfaithful.
He was good to me, she thought,

just before she pulled the trigger.
He painted me with flowers.

- Irene Latham