Manet in Seville

There is a doorway,
wood of beam, wood of lintel,
that spreads
the stone and mortar wide.

There is a woman, supple, sinewed-
her evening dress sewn of shadows
cast in deserts, her eyes 
wet with recollected Roman light.

She is shaped for the doorway,
as if the lintel, as if the beams
were but stretchers of a canvas,
and she, a painting come to life.


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