Female Nude (I Love Eva), by Matt Zambito

Female Nude (I Love Eva), by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1912

Female Nude (I Love Eva) 
 
I say she’s naked, but if this is a female 
nude (Pablo Picasso says this is 
a female nude) I’ll try to love and try
to love it. A female nude, 
who the painting might love, isn’t 
Eva, who never stood nude, 
let alone naked, long enough 
for rectangles and lines and half circles. 
A female nude of rectangles and lines 
of half circles of red, yellow, blue, 
orange, green, peach, (this is a boring list), isn’t 
a boring list, but a painting 
Pablo called Female Nude 
(I Love Eva) only 
in French. I don’t love Eva 
or French (like Stein I love American!) or this female 
nude, but Susie, who gets nude 
and loves rectangles of lines and half 
circles and red of orange, yellow, 
green-peach of blue, and who, like most nude 
females or female nudes, 
isn’t Eva. All things 
are shapes and colours deep down 
in the Evas in each of us hanging in frames 
on our museum walls. Our nude faces break 
like plates--a nose here, lips there, one eye
too many--but we want to be 
loved anyway. It’s the same Eva 
from a different angle and it is the same Eva 
from a different angle. It is and it is 
the same love of boring lists 
made beautiful. When I called Susie “Eva,” 
which is better than calling her “Pablo,” she turned 
 into a boring list. But boring 
isn’t boring when it’s a painting, 
and I love her, Susie of Eva, and Pablo 
with his caritas of sand and orange of oil 
and charcoal, and I love her and red 
of yellow of blue of peach of 
green, O, Eva! Eva! Eva! Eva! Eva! 
 
Matt Zambito

This poem first appeared in Another Chicago Magazine  and in the author's book, The Fantastic Congress of Oddities.

Matt Zambito is the author of The Fantastic Congress of Oddities, and two chapbooks, Guy Talk and Checks & Balances. New poems are forthcoming in Tampa Review, Slipstream, Freshwater Literary Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere, and he’s received awards from the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Academy of American Poets. Originally from Niagara Falls, he has lived in Ohio, Idaho, Washington, and New York, where he now resides with his rescue dog, Sadie.