The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

The Child's Bath, by Jason Gebhardt

7/11/2018

1 Comment

 
Picture
The Child's Bath, by Mary Cassatt, (USA). 1893.
The Child's Bath

A woman washing her daughter’s feet
in a porcelain bowl, shown
from your high angle,
forgive my slowness.

My waddle is all thumbs, my memory,
a steer’s rib cage
upturned, bleaching in a meadow.
When you first appeared

on the overhead
in Mr. McCloud’s class,
I confess my mind was on
that girl sitting in the back row

whose name I can’t recall,
but whose face now seems imprinted
along the same synapses
you course through.

Do some ducklings not recognize
their mother?
Perhaps that’s why, here
before your original

at the Art Institute of Chicago,
I’m finally struck
by how I can’t see
the woman’s eyes or her daughter’s,

that I have to look down,
as they do, to the hand
cupping the toes dipped in water.
So much of you

is that drab striped dress, itself
a canvas for holding
the child. The rug, pitcher, bureau
there only to hint

this was a real room once,
before it became a tender gaze
held by a room
with no door for me to enter.

Jason Gebhardt

Jason Gebhardt’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the The Southern Review, Poet Lore, Iron Horse Literary Review, Crab Creek Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The William and Mary Review. His chapbook Good Housekeeping was a semifinalist in the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition and won the 2016 Cathy Smith Bowers Prize. He is the recipient of multiple Artist Fellowships awarded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He studies with Sandra Beasley, Stanley Plumly, and Elizabeth Rees.

1 Comment
Sue Ellen Thompson link
7/11/2018 11:48:13 am

I rarely warm to ekphrastic poems, but this one is exceptional. Well done, Jason!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Join us: Facebook and Bluesky
    @ekphrasticreview.



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic [email protected] 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead