Katherine Smith

Berthe Morisot

The vision that gave me my most quiet hours—
blossoming fruit tree, a daughter's brow—
.
flashed across the hall from Manet's
Balcony at the Salon until the startled crowds

compared my intensity to Medusa's,
and said I was a femme fatale.

I loathed and loved my weird and watchful eyes,
which frightened once a little boy. It wasn't

the darkness, but solitude that scared him,
my look a common crow perched much too high

on clouds of crinoline. A suitor's glance skipped
the polished surface of my skin

and sometimes found me sweet. But peering close
he saw a gaze return his own, the marble urn

of roses breathe and fling the flowers down.