Gwen John's Chair
Kasey Jueds | Poetry
After her death, kept
by her nephew, until finally
woodworms consumed it—
once-pliant body
of the willow it was
given back to animal need.
In her painting, it’s empty,
sturdied by a window, a tide
of changeling light.
Summer: whatever’s left
of loneliness
shepherded by distant trees.
Kasey Jueds is the author of two collections of poetry, both from the University of Pittsburgh Press: Keeper, which won the 2012 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and The Thicket. She lives in the mountains of New York State.