Deauville, Le Paddock, by Barbara Crooker

Deauville, Le Paddock, by Raoul Dufy (France). 1960.

​Deauville, Le Paddock

This house, pink stucco, could be made of meringue,
a confection beaten out of egg white and light.  If I bit
into it, sugar would melt on my tongue.  Sunlight
drops like coins through the leaves of the plane trees;
a short lick of black defines every shadow. Behind it,
sky meets sea, rises, a field of cobalt.  I imagine
our hearts to be pink as this house, moving blood
through delicate machinery, red on one side, blue
on the other.  There’s a riderless horse in one corner
of the picture, you’ve just alighted and are looking
into my eyes as if nothing in the world was as important
as what I might say next.  I want to paint your body
with the pink sable of my tongue. I want to memorize
your skin.  I want this blue afternoon to never end.

Barbara Crooker

​This poem was previously published in Barbara Crooker's book, Gold (Poiema Poetry).

Barbara Crooker is the author of nine books of poetry; Les Fauves is the most recent.  Her work has appeared in many anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence and Nasty Women: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse.  www.barbaracrooker.com