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Marc Hudson is professor of English at Wabash. “After a Painting by Diego Rivera” is reprinted fromThe Disappearing Poet Blues, published by Bucknell University Press.

Magazine
Summer/Fall 2002

an additional selection from

The Disappearing Poet Blues


by Marc Hudson

After a Painting by Diego Rivera

1

Imagine!

A man bent double by flowers—
great, open throated calla lilies, no less.
Ah, the burdens of poetry.

2

So it was one afternoon
when she came by
with her white shoulders all bare,
I was brought to my knees by beauty

and try as I might
I can never rise in this life again.

3

Into that wilderness of sorrows
I have walked a few paces
following the man of thorns,

but have gone no further
these several years.
I can believe his suffering,
the spikes, the hard blows
as if they were laying track with his body
into the twentieth century.

His release, I can't believe.
Why can't we admit
the project of love
broke him
as it would you or me?

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