Self-Portrait as a Young Tahitian, by Virginia Barrett

Two Tahitian Women, by Paul Gauguin (France). 1899.

Self-Portrait as a Young Tahitian
                         after Paul Gauguin                
                         [and Adult Children of Alcoholics]


She cradles a bowl of flowers, her nipples
the same deep rose as the blooms. Tahiti is hot--
we women may all wish to live this way—our breasts
open to the flora, the fecundity they share.

           [“Take your shirt and sweater and off,” the man
           with the camera urged in an isolated October meadow.
           As a child you could not predict the outcome of any
           given behaviour, so you don’t know how to do it now.]

Her gaze does not falter, but looks off
to the right--she accepts that he posed her here,
as if on her way to a pagan altar deep in the leaves
by the thundering waterfall.

           [It was unnatural to me, a cold-climate girl
           just beginning to bud. The fact that they may treat
           you poorly does not matter.]

Her friend clasps pink flowers to her chest: a posture of
prayer. She leans into the other, profile tilted down, eyes
cast to the left, away from the bowl. There is a gravity
in her face—near mystical. We talk about
an external and an internal focus of control.

            [Black and white blow-up, the printed image
            made me cringe: pudgy torso caught in awkward
            adolescence above jeans. Your judgement of others
            is not nearly as harsh as your judgement of yourself.]

These girls may live in grace and naked ease, but it’s
his abstract forms—this brilliant yellow between
trees—that makes me ache to create . . . the situation is
further complicated by a terrible sense of urgency.

Virginia Barrett

Virginia Barrett’s books of poetry include Between Looking, Finishing Line Press (forthcoming, 2019) Crossing Haight, and I Just Wear My Wings. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.