Woman – Ochre, by Ronald Zack

Woman-Ochre, by Willem de Kooning (USA, b. Netherlands) 1954

Woman – Ochre
 
for Willem de Kooning
 
I’ve watched you two,
my saviours, for 27 years.
And I am no fly on the wall,
oh no . . .
not with these bold
breasts and broad brownish
brushed body parts – I am the
most commanding presence in
the bedroom with the door
closed, notwithstanding the passion
in front of me.  I am the secret
centrepiece of the whole house.
 
I’ve seen it all from your bare
nakedness to your hungry
consumption of one another, as if
no one else existed, or no one else
was watching. . .
those moments you tried to
forget me.  But you never could, could
you? Those transient peaks of passion
you found in each other could never
match the thrill of the bumpy ride
from Tucson to Cliff after
withdrawing me from my academic
prison.  Thank you.  What did
 
I inspire in you two?  What did you
inspire in me?  Quietly, the creator
admires what you did.  The goal
is not to study as the pompous
academics arrogantly proclaim
while most objects of purported
study are parked in storage bins
absorbing darkness.  The goal
is not for masses to wander
by chewing gum and listening
to ear buds while making snap
decisions about what is good and
what is not.  On no. . . the goal
is to love . . .to see. . .to feel . .
to worship . . .to come skin-to-skin
 and soul-to-soul . . .
to find true intimacy.
 
I was born again by your physical
love.  We became the threesome,
the menage a trois,
making violent, unrelenting love
like the bold, broad, and powerful
strokes from where we all
began – the friction of creativity,
the swapping of familiar fluids
like paint dripping off the palette
and onto the canvas.
 
You saw me naked just as I
saw your bare, sweaty, entwined,
bodies, and heard your panting
and screaming as you erupted . . .
 
like when you eagerly hurried
down the museum steps,
with Woman Concealed,
feeling the pinnacle of passion
as you burst into
the cold Tucson morning.
 
Ronald Zack
 
Author's Note:  In November of 1985, the William de Kooning painting Woman-Ochre was stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art by a couple, a man and woman visiting the museum at opening time.  The painting was found in 2017 after death of the surviving spouse of a New Mexico couple.  The painting was hanging in their bedroom, behind the door, visible only from inside the bedroom when the door was closed.
  
Ronald Zack is an attorney and nurse practitioner in Tucson, Arizona. He was raised in Detroit and now lives and works in Arizona. He is currently studying poetry in the MFA in Creative Writing program at the Mississippi University for Women.