Women In White Poem by MARINA GIPPS

In paintings,
women in white dresses promenade,
picnic, recline on couches, converse
over tea, and sew in sunny parlors.
How do they feel bathed in
the nunnery of watercolor?

With their novocaine smiles,
they are unable to draw blood
in the spinning room to sew
some softness from dead lambs.
I imagine their hearts as thin-ribbed
swirls of an amethyst, a light reflecting shade
of a healing stone

On their honeymoon nights,
through their quick labor-
thrusting an intensity
never captured in art.