To George Bellows on Riverfront No. 1, by ​Pat Snyder Hurley

Riverfront 1, by George Bellows (USA) 1915.

To George Bellows on Riverfront No. 1

Is that Emma watching
In that trio on the right?
Just last year you painted her
- royal blue, white lace -
seated placidly at a piano
playing Schubert, perhaps, or Brahms

And now you’ve hauled her
straightway
to the river,
family fully-clothed
witness
to fleshy merriment.

They take it all in -
arms and legs and butts -
Peeling off clothes, scraping, draping
Pulling onto piling and docks
Well out of the drawing room
And that blue-eyed vase.

And what about that blonde-haired boy -
Curious, shyly
Clinging?
Will he soon arch his back?
Break away?
Rush headlong into New York City

As you did?

Pat Snyder Hurley

This poem first appeared in A Rustling and Waking Within: Poems inspired by the arts in Ohio, published by the Ohio Poetry Association. 

​Pat Snyder Hurley is a recovering attorney and long-time humour columnist from Columbus, Ohio, who recently began writing poetry. Her work has appeared in the literary journals Still Crazy and Common Threads, the Ohio Poetry Association’s ekphrastic poetry anthology A Rustling and Waking Within, and the online literary journal The MOON Magazine. A collaborative collection of her poems and those of her late husband Bill Hurley, Hard to Swallow, is scheduled for publication in January 2018 by Night Ballet Press.