The Woman in an Imaginary Painting by Tom Montag

                   lillie kate CC



from
​"The Woman in an Imaginary Painting"


Why is it
a simple shape
suggests

much more,
a part to make
the whole?

This line might
be a ridge
of mountains.

That curve a
woman's breast.
Is it in

the artist's
eye, or the
beholder's?

Is it in
what's put on
canvas? No.

Suggestion
is in the
thing itself.

Each thing is
everything
it can be.





​from
"The Woman in an Imaginary Painting"


The artist stood
back where the poet

would. Distance
lets you see more

closely. The heat
of attention

pushes hard at
its object, model

or bowl of fruit.
Truth has its say

from such a vantage,
far enough but

not too far. Here,
stand here and look

at her. You will
see what I mean.





from
"The Woman in an Imaginary Painting"


Imagination,
you say. This.

Somewhere a young
woman needs help,

trapped in the dark,
desperate. Not

our business,
you say. This.

It could be your
daughter. We could

be her last hope.
This. Listen. She is

trying to speak.



Tom Montag's books of poetry include: Making Hay & Other Poems; Middle Ground; The Big Book of Ben Zen; In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013; This Wrecked World; The Miles No One Wants; Imagination's Place; Love Poems; and Seventy at Seventy. His poem 'Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain' has been permanently incorporated into the design of the Milwaukee Convention Center. He blogs at The Middlewesterner. With David Graham he recently co-edited Local News: Poetry About Small Towns.