Woman Sewing
by Kate Foley
(After a painting by Vulliard)
She’s bowed her head,
obedient to the light,
small dun brown woman
wearing a sparrow’s speckled dress.
Sewing, domestic heaps of blacks
and browns, half-tones, shadows,
her gilded neck, her sleeve
alive, strokeable light
glazing each offered plane.
It’s the one thing needful,
the necessary measure for every shade
of black
and sitting with the light
as a creature beside her
is work enough.