Poem inspired by Lady in a Bath
It might be Ophelia but she she’s smiling as she dies, her white arm falling limply from the rim. It might be the Lady of the Lake except she’s shed her samite gown.
and, stepping from it, left it on the floor. Or is she a lost mermaid hanging back her seaweed hair, discovered panting at low tide
and dragged to safety from the shore? The bath itself is luminous and deeper than we think; the walls transparent, shimmering.
There must be some mistake. And what are we to make of him – the interloper standing at her side who serenades her as she loses hold,
creating and sustaining what we see: the strange fruit on the table at her side, the four walls disappearing into light, the water broken by one bending limb.