The Girl with Her Face in Her Hand at the Luncheon of the Boating Party, by Nicole Burdick

Luncheon of the Boating Party, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (France) 1880-1881

The Girl with Her Face in Her Hand at the Luncheon of the Boating Party 
 
I was on the patio wearing the ochre and sienna 
as promised; you insisted on staying boys 
 
with those hats. By then there were places 
I’d lived inside so long, they’d textured me – 

you were one of them. The awning tripped 
in the wind. Everyone was talking at once. 
 
Hoots rose up from the shore. 
You predicted yourselves into the future – 

control looked so casual on you. 
Someone feigned rapture to stir a laugh.
 
There was no one we could not be together. 
Even the terrier was complicit. 
 
Nicole Burdick 
​
Nicole Burdick is a Language Arts educator living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam where ants now make their way into her poems more often. Despite the fact that people bless her for doing it, facilitating a thinking-is-fun environment about literature for teenagers is actually a dream job. She also paints abstract stories, collages broken tile, and cooks like she is from everywhere. Her poems can be found in Fence and elsewhere.