Nude in an Interior, by Catherine Arnold

Nude in an Interior, by Pierre Bonnard (France) 1935

Nude in an Interior
 
Vertical streak of a ghost woman    
stretching      on a      floating plinth
Colour!      
it is colour to lick      to kiss      to drink      to eat
not to measure      or to cut.

Door jamb      blue       blue   
teeth of sunlight       nibbling the walls
this peeled sliver of a woman      rising      behind the fainting wall
a single foot planted      on the tender carpet      like an egg      the yolk spilling
through her toes
wall      that is not a wall  
gamboge orange heavy marmalade hot collapsing      
(there’s no frame       no plaster to it)    
instead      rose-fish flowers swimming      opening their fat lip-petals. 
​
A shutter      a stalk      blue      ultra
marine
looking at this canvas      I see
that most painted colour      is a shrug    
a pause      an idea        
not this swoon      this imbibing
this pure    
essential
heartless  
yellow.

Catherine Arnold

Catherine Arnold’s debut poetry collection, Receipt for Lost Words, came out in spring 2023 from Bauhan Publishing, after winning the The May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. Her new collection, The Apple Tree, will be published by Bauhan in spring 2025 (and contains several ekphrastic poems!). Catherine is a visual artist as well as a writer. She adores all Bonnard’s incredible paintings, and her own can be seen at catherinearnold.com.