"Still Life, 1937" by Matthew Woodman

Still Life, 1937
(after the Rufino Tamayo painting Naturaleza muerta, 1937)

We haunt the table
for one seats two half

eaten plates of fruit a water
melon cleft thirds the rind

freckled her cheeks flushed
in grey the daguerreotype

oval frame honor hung
usually along the west wall

now here in offering
have I finished eating I don’t

want to just yet leave
on an empty stomach the core

that holds all the seeds
a continuum on repeat

when we meet
be it will it

sweet

Matthew woodman

Matthew Woodman teaches writing at California State University, Bakersfield, and is the founding editor of the journal, Rabid Oak. His writing appears in recent issues of Sonora Review, Puerto del Sol, Habitat, Memoir Mixtapes, and Mojave Heart Review, and more of his work can be found at www.matthewwoodman.com.

Photo Credit: Staff