on John Singer Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882

In a shut-in, starless space
all four daughters stand
with weightless certainty
still as statuary
in a mausoleum of a room.

The older two are recessed, deep in shadow
Another poses—
red dress, white pinafore
atop broad-planked boards.

The baby rests
on a pale green carpet, set
with a pattern of Greek keys;
they circle round in threads
and mark the border and do not end.

Four girls, forever
poised in this bare room;
three, with stark, frank gaze
and one, whose face fades and fades—
her back pressed on a glazed urn
decorated with a crane

We wait for the gray-blue bird, sealed, mid-flight
To thrash her great wings, to shatter that vase.

Image via Wikimedia