Late Renoir

By Courtney Bambrick

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I.

The girls sleepy, warm, milk-fed—
patient under the avuncular gaze of the artist. You say, 

I love the way he works with hair and clothing.  
You nose up to the canvas, admire craft.  

My eyes are on the floor, the shoes
some women squeak through the hall.

II.

Renoir had young children in his 50s 
and he painted them— 

You could do that—
is all I can think in this room.  

Let me bear you your Jean and Claude 
and Gabrielle. Let me sit for you with a baby

at my breast. Let your gaze settle, then,  
on what could be here: in my arm, my belly.  

Let the whole of the universe open to you 
in the rabbit breath of a sleeping baby.

III.

Large Bather. Hours since my shower, but
you sniff behind my ear and say  

how great my hair smells. And, 
Some of these nudes look like you.

Courtney Bambrick serves as poetry editor at Philadelphia Stories. Her poetry is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, and has appeared in New York Quarterly, Beyond Words, Invisible City, The Fanzine, Philadelphia Poets, Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Mad Poets Review, and Certain Circuits. Chapbooks have been semi-finalists and finalists in contests for Iron Horse and Pavement Saw. She teaches writing at Thomas Jefferson University’s East Falls campus in Philadelphia.

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