Pardon, by Matthew Murrey

7/2/2020

Pardon in Brittany, by Gaston La Touche (France) 1896

Pardon

After months of disease
with everything shut down
I long for a few hours in the Art
Institute in Chicago, to be
Cassatt’s child being washed
or Kandinsky’s troika rushing
up the wave of a field
with all that wild blue in tow.
I want to shelter in a box
that Cornell has furnished
with trinkets—simple relics--
then go stare into the glassy blue
love of Chagall’s better city.
Maybe I’ll pause for the rain
in Paris, or rest in a yellow chair
beneath a green window,
even climb into the bed
and nap under its red blanket.
I’ll finish in Brittany where I started
thirty-some years ago in reverence
for La Touche’s candle flames
making the white wimples glow
as the faithful, who I no longer
stand among, stand hushed
and bowed as a priest forgives
them while a pale horse, with help
from the lavender evening,
holds it all down, bearing
a woman and a child on its back.

Matthew Murrey

Matthew Murrey: "My poems have appeared in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, and Rattle. I am a NEA Fellowship recipient, and my debut poetry collection, Bulletproof, was published in February 2019 by Jacar Press. I am a high school librarian in Urbana, Illinois. My website is at https://www.matthewmurrey.net/"