Zorba's Daughter: poems

On the High Speed Train to Vendome, I See a Woman Who Looks Like Madame Cezanne

[87] O N T H E H I G H S P E E D T R A I N TO V E N D O M E , I S E E A WO M A N W H O L O O K S L I K E M A D A M E C E Z A N N E I try not to stare. She leans back and closes her eyes, brows plucked, no lipstick, bare throat and lobes jewels enough. The train starts, will glide from Paris to Vendome in less than an hour, silken and smooth as a limo. I think of Chopin frail in coaches. To Sand in Nohant and back again, the jolting murderous. Would he trade centuries? Meanwhile, my lady sleeps, and I am struck again by the resemblance to Hortense, her hands clasped neatly in her lap as Madame posed for Paul in the conservatory. Fields of yellow rape stream by, the horizon jagged with steeples. Near Vendome, she jerks awake, rises to expose the full streak of leopard-print sweat suit. Balancing in the aisle, she’s a cypress blown in Aix, covered from neck to ankle [88] with splotches of black and gold, her priceless leopard self unfinished but perfectly realized. ...