The Park

It was I think a small town in Ohio

I taped to the wall above my office desk the postcard

Of Klimt’s painting called The Park

An example of cliché so profuse it touched my heart

Consoling me each time I turned my glance to its

Storm of tiny moth-sized leaves shimmering over all but the bottom

Ribbon of the canvas where the rows of the trunks individuate

The mass of the pulsing foliage above

A figure in a kimono or a robe so lush it too seems foliate

Stands apart from two other figures similarly dressed

But (the two) huddled closely together & moving off the sheer

Right edge of the canvas

& the solitary figure remains oddly hesitant & indistinct

& pensive although

Perhaps she is simply realizing that she does not wish to go

Where all of the others wish to go

“The Park” originally appeared in The Paris Review (1998). Used

with permission of the poet.