Dear Andrew Wyeth, by Tina Schumann

Dear Andrew Wyeth

I question the colour of your sky
             and yet I know it well
– opaque, fading, on the wing…
Your subjects place their eyes
           elsewhere;
Helga looks to the floor
           or out the window, Christina turns her back to us,
Betsy casts her private thoughts to the wall,
           and neighbours observe the dirt.
Even the white slate
                           of lime banks appear removed.
The dory man adrift in his dreams.
              The fire nearly out. The dog half-asleep.

Tina Schumann

Tina Schumann is the pushcart nominated author of three poetry collections: As If, winner of the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize, Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues, winner of the Diode Editions Chapbook competition, and Praising the Paradox (Red Hen Press, 2019). She is editor of the IPPY award-winning anthology Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents. Her poems have appeared widely since 1999, including Ascent, Cimarron Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Nimrod, Parabola, Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac.