IN THE MIRRORS OF THE SALON
By: JAMES PENHA
Duval’s Madame
is Marie is de Loynes
is in love
perhaps with another painter today
artist woman artist
in love
perhaps with her selves her shapes
Madame Marie de Loynes
triangulation
hurts delicately exquisitely certainly
desire
penetrates painters
pains delicate consciences
Dreyfusards
in despair
the eyes
cut
remorselessly in blue and blood
and in the proof of geometry:
a triangle
is a closed
figure.
___________________________
A native New Yorker, James Penha has lived for the past twenty years in Indonesia. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and in poetry. Snakes and Angels, a collection of his adaptations of classic Indonesian folk tales, won the 2009 Cervena Barva Press fiction chapbook contest; No Bones to Carry, a volume of his poetry, the 2007 New Sins Press Editors’ Choice Award. His earlier chapbooks of poetry were Greatest Hits (Pudding House: 2001) and On the Back of the Dragon (Omega Cat Press: 1992). Waterways selected lines from his many contributions to that litmag as its 2011-2012 themes for submissions. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry.
