Degas knew the feel of light
on delicate moving bones,
anatomising figures
pulling on a glove,
trying a summer hat
with tongue-tip protruding -
or jovial straddling whores,
oblivious of judgement,
gawky girls in tights,
at a first audition,
dancers posing, hiding
in translucencies of yellow,
green and pink and blue,
until his eyes grew dim
and the faces blurred.
Dancers and bathers
turned their face aside,
a friend here, a cousin there,
withdrew into the dark.
Sudden gaps appearing
on teeming studio walls,
he filled with canvases
by Delacroix and Ingres.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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