Claudine Reading A Book Poem by Martin Ward

Claudine Reading a Book
(Marcel Dyf, oil on canvass)

I hope the book was interesting,
as Marcel immortalised you
in thick impasto, applied by knife.

You must have warmed to him,
as you turned the pages, holding pose
so sweetly as to captivate the creator.

Those tantalising curls that bobbed
almost to your cheeks; each hair caressed
here at first and then in times to come.

There would have been time to read a library;
your variations on a theme, played
time and time again beneath his hands.

Claudine, the inspiration to make a masterpiece,
then and now, as the pages, then chapters pass,
the mix hardens, leaving you reading.