IN THE REALM OF PURE COLOR

after Gauguin’s The Loss of Virginity

It is our eyes that lose

their innocence, ravished by

these purples and greens as we gaze

at the woman lying there,

her ankles pressed together,

like Holbein’s Christ.

She is perfectly immobile,

as if the fox signifying lust

were hardly there, nor the bird

settled on her open hand.

Even the procession that winds 

its slow way towards her

is simply a curve of darkness

in the distance. In this realm

of pure color it is the intense blues

of the water that matter,

the soft shapes of the rocks,

more voluptuous than any woman.

And she becomes a flat plane of white

in the foreground, the tropical color

of sand after the sea has receded.