THOUGHTS ON CÉZANNE IN
HIS OLD AGE
I could take in boarders breakfast
on crusts and water
drag
sore knees and a jointed
German
easel to the
rutted
ridge near an
undistinguished
hump
of
brooding rock, painted
again
and again;
grow
my beard wild as abandoned fields
if crazed
suits and pronouncements
came
with that fierce cool gaze
caressing
with infinite tenderness
the
golden skin
of
a perfectly
ordinary
peach.
Version first published in The Federal Poet, Vol. LXIII No. 2 (Fall 2015)