The Cruellest Month

April 10— Grace Cossington Smith

Tossing three diabolos,
family, love and art.
The sheets have been mangled,
the love has been made,
the canvas stretched
and primed.

In another room,
the knee bleeds a rose on the bandage.
The jug dribbles cream,
while the man's blind heart
is large and demanding as cabbage.

A bouquet of fitches
in a jam jar, no vase
of cheap geraniums,
continues to grow
in the right light.

Interior with Wardrobe
shows the room daubed back
with dancing light
in the mirror

while The Sock Knitter's
modest purple cardigan
reflects in chalky pink
on her cheeks

while the Harbour Bridge
has yet to meet
in the middle, its lacy iron arcs
rearing from sandstone.

There are noses to be wiped,
there are husbands to be silenced,
there are moments to commit
to the paint. Tossing three diabolos,
family, love and art.





April 10—art by women, women painters in history or now