98) Serena

One autumn, years after you fucked me to shreds and vanished,
I visited Anna at her studio upstate. We walked the stubbled
fields, drank wine beneath a yellow willow, and after dinner she
showed me some canvases. One was of you: stretched nude in a
green chair, your fingers even longer, skin even deeper burnt
umber than I remembered. Anna was amazed. I didn't known her.
She modeled at the colony last summer. Today, years since I saw
Anna, someone behind me on the snowy sidewalk calls Serena!
Lost one, what's become of me? I thought of the painting first.

---Joel Brouwer