Georgia O'Keeffe's Nude Series VIII, watercolour, 1917, by Karen George

Nude Series VIII, by Georgia O'Keeffe (USA) 1917.

Georgia O'Keeffe's Nude Series VIII, watercolour, 1917
 
Her body vibrant blue and sea green
edges wavy, skin more porous
like a shore that fails to cinch
an ocean in place.
She sits cross-legged
in no visible chair
free-floats in chalk-white
except for one tiny brush poke
smudge above an elbow
calculated to convey
Yes, there's power in my points
my hidden bones.
 
Neither hands nor feet
but wide hips.
Her frame, planes of colour
that overlap in darker patches.
One diagonal arm reaches
for something outside the frame.
The other touches her blank face.
Deep red throat and mouth--
her voice centers.
Where her heart, areolas,
and ovaries stow—golden pink.
Legs fused into a tail.
She's morphing back
into a water woman.
​
Karen George

Karen George is a retired computer programmer obsessed with art and photography, working on a poetry collection inspired by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Emily Carr paintings. She’s author of five chapbooks, and two poetry collections from Dos Madres Press, Swim Your Way Back (2014) and A Map and One Year (2018), and her work appears at Adirondack Review, Louisville Review, Naugatuck River Review, Sliver of Stone, America Magazine, and Still: The Journal. She reviews poetry at http://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/, and is fiction editor of the online journal Waypoints: http://www.waypointsmag.com/. Her website is: http://karenlgeorge.snack.ws/.