Pierre Bonnard’s Nude Before a Mirror

(in the style of Victoria Chang’s Edward Hopper study: Office at Night)

The woman is naked pale maybe
xxxxxxxafraid the woman is standing
xxxin front of the mirror the woman is naked
xxxxxxxwith shoes on she is naked
in a hurry she considers lingers maybe
xxxxxxxshivers in worry she

stares in the mirror her blank
xxxbody exposed bare breasts gleaming
like two unpeeled oranges her body shivers
xxxxxxxin the wind her reflection is a dare
xxxxxxxxxxxxa blonde twin she bares to buy
xxxtime in the sunlight she is naked

in a hurry the oranges are left
xxxxxxxwanting like the men outside who see her
unpeeled body as exhibition as invitation as open
xxxbook she blinks at her smiling twin
a soft piano croons the men might eat her
xxxxxxxoranges the men will

want her bare by her own volition they are
xxxready outside the woman misses her darling
dog hates the hound dogs outside who call her doll
xxxxxxxwhen they mean bitch take it all
xxxoff the woman keeps her shoes on eats
xxxxxxxan orange just in case

Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in the Bath and Small Dog

(in the style of Victoria Chang’s Edward Hopper study: Hotel Room)

While a woman drowns
in solitude, her dog sits
dutifully on a pink rug.
She contemplates the navy
sheet of night from her tomb.
The water is lukewarm,
her gaze muffled.
The hour is ten
degrees removed from
dawn, more or less
since the dog is awake.
No clocks, just two
candlestick legs at two
minutes past twelve. That
is all the artist offers,
knowing we would turn
the woman’s pointed
solitude into poignant
loneliness, a search for
the self in everything. I am
told the woman is his wife.
She would soak in
shriveled bliss for hours—
an obsession, I presume, with
purity. I wonder why
Bonnard painted
this portrait of a
prisoner, whether
each brushstroke
soothed or stoked her
pain.