Sample Poems by Eve Rifkah

My Father Explains The Dance at Bougival at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman,
Suzanne Valadon,
desired by all the artists of Paris.
They covered canvas and paper
and etchings with her body,
covered her skin with their own.
Her son Maurice became a famous painter,
father unknown.
Some thought it was the French artist who made her famous
dancing the country dance,
the city dance. Some thought it was the Spaniard
who gave the child his name. It was all
conjecture.

Now I rail at the unsaid:
Suzanne the artist not a story told.

Hunger

bits of chalk crumble in my fingers
down to nubs to scraped knuckles
frenzied I draw in swooping and hard lines
those who pass on the street below
seen from one grim window
until I run out of wall

mother comes home heavy
hauling baskets of laundry
angry as though I did harm
these dingy walls scored and stained
what grace do I cover?
she rubs out rubs out

down on the pavement
I draw those that dawdle
gawking at the girl playing artist
as though it is a game

I grab scurrying scraps of paper
bills of lading old receipts
once a letter crumpled
and smoothed

my hands hunger for line
there is never enough
pencil and chalk
pieces of coal make do

famished with lonely
I hold walkers with my lines
drawn faces stare back
I draw to know

Resurrection

doesn’t work for birds.
In earth among flowers
I buried my sparrow, when its quick-breath stopped.
I prayed as the sisters in the convent school taught.

I returned to the tiny grave
waiting to see my bird rise
and hop among low blossoms.
Day after day I waited.
Did that ungrateful bird fly to Paradise
without an adieu?
I dig through worm and stone
pale bones wrapped in muddied feathers.

This must be the end for all
souls feeding green shoots rising to the sky.
I will have no more of god-lifting.

Love Song

is what Rusinol titled his painting.
I am sitting at the piano as though I could play
Erik looks on, his eyes washed in love.
Erik who invents songs that cat-leap across the staves
music the greatest invention of our time
My first oil painting, his portrait.

A short song it was – six months. No more
could I play the sweet dreams the make-believe.

Someday we will walk in rooms filled with paintings
documenting our loves
Erik’s compositions riding air-currents
heated with talk like sparrows.
He will be there with Debussy and the others
haunting the turn of time.

Oh, Erik, I didn’t know love then
only the play of love in rumpled sheets.
My scissors cut
you from the photo of my son and me.
My dog looks to the empty space
where your hand once held his leash.