Robert Fillman

Procession on a Road near Florence

 after Degas

Could there really be dancing
at a funeral? Women
in loose, flowing gowns twirling 

gracefully as a servant
shields them with a parasol
from the sun's howling gnaw. So 

why do these thin water-lined
figures seem as though they're chained
to grief as they weather this 

winding road near Florence? Does
that horse-drawn cart hold the dawn
of their ghost-silk legacy 

in its small gilt box? That pair
of magnificent horses
might be pulling the unborn 

music of a family's
painted smile toward the east.
From the distance, attendants 

look hollow, the procession
the petaled folds of a sigh.
That rough wash of sepia 

an ash-colored birthmark that
kisses the heat-swallowed crowd,
cleanses their bare, burning feet.  

NOTE: On March 18, 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was subject to perhaps the most notorious art robbery in history. This painting was among the masterpieces stolen.

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Robert Fillman is the author of House Bird (Terrapin 2022) and November Weather Spell (Main Street Rag 2019). Individual poems have appeared in Gargoyle, Ninth Letter, Poetry East, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily and elsewhere. He teaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania.