Anthology

Reclining Nude

S. Michael Snyder

(a painting by Amedeo Modigliani)

Art experts still maintain
Modigliani
never loved

the servant girls who posed
on beds
and clean couches bare

he was too poor
for the tan drab
of

fair Paris models
he would
rather have

a trade of laundry
and dishes and
swept-up dust

for tired gaunt frame's luxury
they cast off
work clothes

and sprawled out enamored
in sweat
oil drop's stroke of sleep