The House at Rueil, 1882 (Edouard Manet)
A poem, a poet’s note and a writing prompt
2 min readJan 27, 2020
Behind the door she sleeps and wakes
and sleeps again, lethargic in the shadowed rooms,
passing half-shuttered windows,
stepping through the swirling
dust-mote beams of sunlight.
She lives a dream of cool emotionless days,
drifting up and down,
up and down the dark staircases,
her long dress dragging gray fluff-balls
into corners, her boneless fingers
caressing the smooth banisters
so their wooden curves shine unnaturally.
Outside, the garden also waits,
vines clamber up the trunks of rustling trees,
grass stretches and yawns,
his chair cracks and fades with the seasons.
Poet’s note: One of my favorite poems to write is the ekphrasis — a poem written about or inspired by a painting or artwork. The title and artist often become the…
