by Mary Rose O'Reilley

    Monet confided to his journal， "All the while she was dying， I could not stop painting her face."

    —Monet at Vétheuil

    He will paint her again as grain；

    now she is fog

    the chantilly fog of the Seine：

    avoiding no hint of the slow dissolve，

    the bandage around her jaw，

    rigor's cramp at the lip，

    how death abraded and hollowed her，

    while he remembered light.

    Had he a failed heart

    or a wholly transfigured eye

    that knew her tonight as water

    convulsion and sky？

    that stared through layers of the body

    at more than it took to die？