De Kooning's Woman With a Bicycle, by M. L. Lyons

Woman with a Bicycle, by Willem de Kooning (USA, b. Netherlands), 1952.

De Kooning’s Woman With a Bicycle

She is the tittering click of heels 
and gossip. Unstable as a bauble’s swing. 
Her soft perfumed sway unsettling 
the senses.
.
She is full of chartreuse sentiments,
bringing in the evening mail with full coverage.
Slyer than a nettle’s sting, she knows the art
of a prying glance, the way a woman has
with news rife with innuendoes.

She is the slap of recognition, the smart
red conversational twist, engorged
with spite. She is sex self-dilated, 
dominating an entire landscape, 
legs askew for anyone’s delight.

Her breasts are all the soft machinery
of motherhood gone to waste. Her mind,
a boxed heirloom awaiting use,
its meaning rattled into place.

Her eyes, the colours of tumbled
quartz --milky, prone to tears.
Her mouth is freshly shredded with
the hard gleam of ivories loosely strung

She is a woman made 
and then made undone. 

M. L. Lyons

M. L. Lyons co-edited Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse Press, 2015). Lyons collaborated with Miye Bishop on a poem based dance as part of Bellingham Dance Repertory's Phrasings in Word + Dance Festival. Her poetry and fiction has been widely published and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Most recently, she was a recipient of a Hedgebrook Vortext scholarship.